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The  Decennial  Publications 


SHAKESPEARE'S  "LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  WON" 

nv 
ALBERT  H;  TOLMAN 


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THE  UNIVERSITY  OP  CHICAGO 

rOUNOID  BI  JOHN  D.  BOCKEFELLEK 


The  Decennial  Publications 


WHAT  HAS  BECOME  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAY 
"LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  WON"? 

BY 

ALBEET  H.  TOLMAN 

ASSISTANT  PB0FE3S0B  OF  BNOLIBH  LtTEBATCBB 


PBINTED  FEOM  VOLUME  VH 


CHICAGO 
THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
1902 


ENGL.  LIB.  FO. 


Copyright  1902 

BY  THE  DNIVBB81TY  OP  CHICAOO 


PRINTED  DECEMBER  1, 1902 


Jto 


WHAT  HAS  BECOME  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAY 
"LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  WON"? 

Albert  H.  Toluan 

In  1598  a  volume  appeared  which  furnishes  perhaps  the  most  important  single 
piece  of  evidence  that  we  have  concerning  the  reputation  that  Shakespeare's  writings 
enjoyed  among  the  men  of  his  own  day.  This  book,  "Palladia  Tamia.  \  WITS 
TKEASVKY  |  Being  the  Second  part  |  of  Wits  Common  \  wealth," '  was  written  by 
Francis  Meres,  "Maister  of  Artes  of  both  Universities."  The  portion  which  especially 
interests  us  is  a  sketch,  or  short  treatise,  which  comes  near  the  end  of  the  work,  and 
bears  the  title  "A  comparatiue  discourse  of  our  English  Poets,  with  the  Oreeke,  Latine, 
and  Italian  Poets.^^  "  Wytts  Treasurye,  "'  as  it  is  called  in  the  Stationers^  Register, 
was  entered  at  Stationers'  Hall  on  the  7th  of  September,  1598.  Halliwell-Phillipps 
thinks  that  the  sketch  that  concerns  us,  the  "comparatiue  discourse,"  was  surely 
written  in  the  summer  of  1598,  since  it  contains  a  notice  of  the  book  of  satires  by 
Marston  which  was  registered  on  the  27th  of  the  preceding  May  as  The  Metamor- 
phosis of  Pigmalions  Image,  and  Satyres."  We  cannot  be  entirely  certain  about  this, 
however.  Meres  was  so  exceptionally  well  acquainted  with  the  literary  productions  of 
his  day  that  he  mentions  certain  works  which  were  not  printed  until  some  years  after 
the  appearance  of  his  own  book,  and  some  others  which  are  not  known  to  have  been 
printed  at  all.  Indeed,  one  of  his  references  to  Shakespeare  is  to  those  "  sugred  Sonnets 
among  his  priuate  friends"  that  were  not  published  until  eleven  years  later — and  are 
not  explained  yet. 

The  attention  of  scholars  was  first  called  to  Meres's  book  by  Thomas  Tyrwhitt, 
in  1766.* 

In  the  elaborate  sentences  in  which  Meres  sets  Elizabethan  over  against  ancient 
writers,  Shakespeare  is  mentioned  by  name  nine  times.  Also,  when  Meres  speaks  of 
"these  declining  and  corrupt  times,  when  there  is  nothing  but  rogery  in  villanous 
man,"'  he  is  certainly  quoting  Falstaff's  utterance:  "There  is  nothing  but  roguery  to 
be  found  in  villanous  man "  (/  Henry  IV.,  II,  iv,  137,  138).     We  shall  look  now  at 

1 0.  M.  iNOiiEBT,  Shakepere  AllvMon-Boola.  Part  I  (Lon-  a  HAi,LrwBi,L-PHiLLiPPS,  Outlines,  Vol.  11,  pp.  148,  U9; 

don,  1874),  p.  151.  The  peculiar  form  of  this  title  involves  an  Aebeb,  Transcript  of  the  Statianera'  Registers,  Vol.  Ill, 

allusion  to  a  book  entitled  "  Foliteuphuia,  Wits  Common-  p.  116. 

Wealth,"  1597,  described  by  Ingleby  as "  a  compilation  by  ,  „,  ..  j,  „     ,    ,  „         „ 

John  Bodenham."     See  iigleby's  Introduction,  pp.  «iii,  ^  *Observattms  and  Conjectures  upon  Some  Passages  of 

^^^  ifi-  1  Sftafce«peare  (Oxford,  1766),  pp.  15, 16.  The  writer  is  indebted 

'      .  to  Miss  Louise  Prouty,  of  the  Boston  Public  Library,  for  a 

2  In  Abbbb,  Transcript  of  the  Stationers'  Registers,  Vol.  copy  of  the  passage  concerned, 
m,  p.  125,  the  first  word  of  the  title  is  "  Wyttes  " ;  but  the 

facsimUe  of  the  entry  in  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Outlines  ^Shakspere  Allusion-Books,  Part  I,  p.  159. 

of  the  Life  of  Shakespeare,  10th  ed,  (Iiondon,  1898),  p.  MS, 
shows  the  form  here  giv^Qf 

m 


125286 


Shakespeabb's  "Love's  Laboub's  Won' 


three  of  the  passages  which  contain  Shakespeare's  name ;  the  other  six  will  be  cited 
later." 

As  the  soule  of  Euphorbus  was  thought  to  Hue  in  Pythagoras :  so  the  sweete  wittie  soule 
of  Ouid  hues  in  mellifluous  &  hony-tongued  Shakespeare,''  witnes  his  Venus  and  Adonis,  his 
Lucrece,  his  sugred  Sonnets  among  his  priuate  friends,  &c. 

As  Plautus  and  Seneca  are  accounted  the  best  for  Cbmedy  and  Tragedy  among  the 
Latines:  so  Shakespeare  among  the  Enghsh  is  the  most  excellent  in  both  kinds  for  the 
stage;  for  Comedy,  witnes  his  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  his  Errors,  his  Loue  labors  lost, 
his  Loue  labours  wonne,  his  Midsummers  night  dreams,  &  his  Merchant  of  Venice:  for 
Tragedy  his  Richard  the  2.  Richard  the  3.  Henry  the  4.  King  John,  Titus  Andronicus  and 
his  Romeo  and  luliet. 

As  Epius  Stolo  said,  that  the  Muses  would  speake  with  Plautus  tongue,  if  they  would 
speak  Latin:  so  I  say  that  the  Muses  would  speak  with  Shakespeares  fine  filed  phrase,  if  they 
would  speake  Enghsh. 

It  seems  to  be  clear  that  Meres  classifies  all  the  dramas  of  Shakespeare  as  either 
comedies  or  tragedies.'  Undoubtedly,  also,  any  play  is  to  him  a  tragedy  in  which  an 
important  character  dies.  Thus  it  happens  that  two  plays,  the  first  and  second  parts 
of  Henry  IV.,  which  present  at  his  best  the  greatest  comic  figure  in  all  literature, 
Falstaff,  are  together  referred  to  as  a  tragedy,  ^'Henry  the  4." 

What  play  did  Meres  refer  to  as  "  Loue  labours  wonne  "  ? 

Of  course,  it  is  possible  that  this  drama  has  been  lost,  though  students  of  Shake- 
speare have  not  generally  considered  this  a  likely  alternative. 

If  Love's  Labour'' s  Won  °  has  not  disappeared,  the  name  must  belong  in  some 
way  to  one  of  the  plays  now  in  our  possession.  The  reference  in  Meres  may  represent 
one  of  two  titles  which  were  in  use  at  the  same  time,  and  which  were  both  applied  to 
one  of  the  plays  that  we  now  have,  and  to  the  form  in  which  we  have  it.  There  are 
two  dramas  in  the  first  folio  edition  of  Shakespeare's  plays  to  which  double  titles  are 
given  in  the  table  of  contents  and  in  the  page-headings:  Twelfe  Night,  or,  What  you 
toill,  and  Othello,  the  Moore  of  Venice.     The  second  of  these  is  practically  a  double 

<  The  entire  "comparatiue  discourse,"  with  seyeral  pre-  "Clown.  Fare  thee  well.  Eemain  thon  still  in  dark- 
ceding  pases,  is  printed  in  Shakspere  Allusion-Booke,  ness :  thon  shalt  hold  the  opinion  of  Pythagoras  ere  I  will 
Part  I,  edited  by  C.  M.  Inolebt,  published  for  the  New  allow  of  thy  wits,  and  fear  to  kill  a  woodcock,  lest  thondis- 
Shakspere  Society  (London,1874),  pp.  151-67.  Abber  prints  possess  the  soul  of  thygrandam.  Fare  thee  well."— IV, 
the  "  comparatiue  discourse  "  in  full  in  his  English  Qamer^  ii,  54-65. 

Vol.  II  (Birmingham,  1879),  pp.  94-106.    Halliwell-Phh.-  It  seems  probable  that  the  words  of  Meres  helped  to  sug- 

LEPPS  prints  all  the  passages  in  which  Shakespeare  is  men-  gest  the  passage  in  Shakespeare.    Walker  thought  that 

tionedbyname:  Outlines  of  the  Life  of  SA.,  10th  ed.  (Lon-  the  dramatist  was  here  drawing  directly  from  Ovid.    See 

don,  1898),  Vol.  II,  pp.  149-51.    The  text  of  Ingleby  has  been  note  in  FilENESs's  edition  of  TweJ/fft  iftpW,  Philadelphia, 

carefully  followed  in  this  paiier,  except  that  only  the  mod-  1901. 

em  forms  of  «,  th,  and  n  have  been  used.  8  The  Shakespeare  First  Folio  gives  the  name  "  Histo- 

7  Professor  J.  M.  Manly  asks  whether  these  words  sug-  ri«5  "  '»  ">«  P'^JS  °«>°«<1  «""  "»»  E°f "^^  ^*°8^  ^"^'f" 

gested  to  Shakespeare  the  foUowing  passage  in  Twelfth  <1»«°'  ^  t''^   Norman   Conquest,  and   prints  these   by 

Kl„l^l.  themselves.    The  English  historical  dramas  of   the   six- 

"  Ctorcn.    What  is  the  opinion  of  Pythagoras  concern-  t««"th  and  seventeenth  centuries  have  recenUy  been  made 

Ing  wild  fowH  '•>»  subject  of  a  careful  study  by  PEOrBSSOB  F.  E.  Schel- 

"Malvolio.    That  the  soul  of  onrgrandam  might  haply  i-iKa,  The  English  Chronicle  Play,  Sew  York,  im. 

inhabit  a  bird.  »The  question  of  the  proper  form  and  interpretation  of 

"Clown.    What  thinkest  thon  of  his  opinioni  the  titles  Love's  Labour's  Lost  and  Love's  Labour's  Won 

"  Malvolio.    I  think  nobly  of  the  sonl,  and  no  way  will  be  considered  in  full  under  the  discussion  of  Much 

approve  his  opinion,  .^do  about  Nothing,   See  pp.  21-25  9. 

160 


Albert  H.  Tolman 


title;  the  earliest  known  reference  to  the  play  (by  Wurmsser  von  Vendenheym,  in 
1610)  calls  it  "I'histoire  du  More  de  Venise." '" 

On  the  opening  page  of  each  of  five  historical  plays  in  the  Folio,  an  elongated 
title  appears,  though  not  in  the  table  of  contents  or  in  the  ordinary  page-headings. 
These  full  designations  are :  The  First  Part  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  with  the  Life  and 
Death  of  Henry  Sirnamed  Hot-spurre;  The  Second  Part  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  Con- 
taining his  Death:  and  the  Coronation  of  King  Henry  the  Fiftj  The  second  Part 
of  Henry  the  Sixt,  with  the  death  of  the  Good  Duke  Humfrey;  The  third  Part  of 
Henry  the  Sixt,  with  the  death  of  the  Duke  of  Yorke;  The  Tragedy  of  Richard  the 
Third:  with  the  Landing  of  Earle  Richmond,  and  the  Battell  at  Bosworth  Field.^^ 
These  long  appellations  may  fairly  be  classed  with  double  titles. 

Another  possibility  is  that  some  play  of  Shakespeare  now  in  existence  represents 
the  revised  form  of  the  earlier  play  known  as  Lovers  Labour^s  Won.  In  this  case  the 
probability  would  be  that  the  present  name  was  given  to  the  new  form  at  the  time  of 
the  revision.  It  is  so  probable  as  to  be  almost  certain  that  the  play  which  appears 
in  the  page-headings  of  the  First  Folio  as  The  second  Part  of  Henry  the  Sixt  received 
this  name  when  the  play  took  its  present  shape.  The  former  title,  The  First  part  of 
the  Contention  betwixt  the  two  famous  Houses  of  Yorke  and  Lancaster,  etc.,  appears 
on  the  title-page  of  the  older  version,  first  printed  in  1594,  out  of  which  with  many 
alterations  and  additions  the  play  in  the  Folio  was  made.  The  play  sometimes  given 
in  the  page-headings  of  the  Folio  as  The  third  Part  of  Henry  the  Sixt,  sometimes  as 
The  third  Part  of  King  Henry  the  Sixt,  bears  a  similar  relation  to  the  supposedly 
older  play  The  true  Tragedie  of  Richard  Duke  of  Yorke,  etc.,  printed  1595.  Whether 
in  these  two  cases  Shakespeare  wrote  any  portion  of  the  older  plays  is  a  question  upon 
which  scholars  are  not  agreed.  But  this  difference  of  opinion  concerning  the  origin 
of  two  dramas  in  the  Shakespearean  canon  is  enough  to  suggest  the  possibility  that 
some  comedy  of  Shakespeare  that  we  now  have  may  have  been  known  in  an  earlier 
version  as  Lovers  Labour's  Won. 

It  is  also  possible  that  Love's  Labour's  Won  received  a  new  name  without  under- 
going any  change  of  form.  If  such  were  the  case,  we  may  presume  that  this  new  title 
commended  itself  as  an  improvement  upon  the  old. 

Mr.  H.  P.  Stokes  thinks  the  evidence  conclusive  that  the  following  plays  of 
Shakespeare,  in  addition  to  Othello  and  Twelfth  Night,  were  each  "(generally  or 
occasionally)  known  by  [two]  different  names: "  "  the  Merchant  of  Venice,  or  the  'Jew 
of  Venice';  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  or  'Sir  John  Falstaff ';  1  Henry  IV.,  or  'Hot- 
spur';'^ Henry  V.,  or  'Agincourt';  2  and  3  Henry  VI.,  or  'York  and  Lancaster,' 
&c.;  Henry  VIII.,  or  'AH  is  True';  Much  Ado,  &c.,  or  'Benedick  and  Beatrice'; 
Julius  Cocsar,  or  'Caesar's  Tragedy.'"" 

These,  then,  would  seem  to  be  the  possible  explanations  why  no  play  has  come 

i" Shakespeare's  Centurie  of  Prayse,  2d  ed,  (London,  12  Compare  the  elongated  title  given  above. 

1879),  p.  93.  13  Chronological  Order  of  Shakespeare's  Plays  (London, 

11  The  variations  in  the  typography  of  these  titles  are  1878),  p.  110,  note, 
not  reproduced. 

161 


Shakespeabe's  "Love's  Labour's  Won' 


down  to  us  with  the  title  Love's  Labour's  Won:  first,  the  play  so  designated  is  no 
longer  extant ;  second,  it  once  bore  a  double  title,  and  the  name  by  which  we  now  know 
it  is  only  a  portion  of  its  former  full  appellation ;  third,  the  change  of  the  name  Love's 
Labour's  Won  to  that  which  now  designates  some  one  of  the  comedies  that  we  know 
was  connected  in  some  way  with  a  revision  of  the  play;  fourth,  the  title  was  changed 
for  some  other  reason,  presumably  to  secure  one  that  was  more  appropriate. 

Let  us  assume  that  Love's  Labour's  Won  has  come  down  to  us  in  some  form; 
and  let  us  bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  no  positive  evidence  connects  this  title  with  any 
particular  comedy  of  Shakespeare.  What  conditions,  then,  ought  one  of  the  come- 
dies to  satisfy,  and  what  characteristics  ought  it  to  possess,  if  it  is  to  establish  as  good 
a  claim  as  possible,  in  the  absence  of  definite  external  evidence,  to  be  identified  wiUi 
Meres's  "Lous  labours  wonne"? 

A  first  requirement  seems  to  be  that  the  comedy  selected  shall  not  appear  by 
name  in  Meres's  list.  Strangely  enough,  two  of  the  solutions  that  have  been  proposed 
identify  Love's  Labour's  Won  respectively  with  Love's  Labour's  Lost  and  A  Mid- 
summer-Night's Dream,  though  both  of  these  plays  are  mentioned  by  Meres.  There 
ifi  an  evident  presumption  against  these  views. 

A  second  requirement  is,  of  course,  that  no  comedy  can  be  considered  to  represent 
Love's  Labour's  Won  unless  it  can  be  shown  that  the  play  either  was,  or  at  least  may 
have  been,  in  existence  in  some  form  as  early  as  1598.  In  the  absence  of  definite 
external  testimony,  a  great  variety  of  evidence  bearing  upon  the  probable  date  of  a 
particular  play  may  need  to  be  considered. 

That  the  title  Love's  Labour's  Won  should  aptly  designate  the  course  of  the 
action  in  the  play  which  we  suppose  to  have  been  thus  named,  seems  to  be  a  third 
reasonable  requirement.  It  is  not  entirely  clear,  however,  that  we  have  a  right  to 
expect  that  the  name  in  question  shall  apply  with  peculiar  fitness.  The  companion 
play.  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  is  not  very  happily  named.  Tieck  recognized  this  by 
giving  to  the  German  translation  the  title  Liebes  Leid  und  Lust.  It  may  seem  prob- 
able, just  for  this  reason,  that  the  other  of  the  two  parallel  designations  was  peculiarly 
apt.  But  even  if  we  were  to  accept  this  inconclusive  argument  as  sound,  we  should 
not  be  greatly  helped,  since  the  phrase  Love's  Labour's  Won  is  almost  a  formula  for 
the  action  of  a  romantic  comedy.  We  may  almost  exalt  it  to  a  class  name,  and  speak 
of  the  love's-labour's-won  comedies.  Few  good  English  comedies  would  fail  to  be 
included  in  this  class.     Says  Fumess: 

Under  Love  labours  wonne,  I  suppose  he  [Meres]  may  have  had  in  mind  any  one  of 
several  Comedies,  wherein  the  labours  of  love  were  successful,  as  they  generally  are  in  all 
Comedies." 

The  similarity  of  the  names  Love's  Labour's  Lost  and  Love's  Labour's  Won 
leads  us  to  expect  parallelisms  and  correspondences  between  the  plays  themselves. 
Considerations  of  this  nature  may  be  of  some  service  in  testing  the  claim  of  any 
comedy  to  be  accepted  as  having  once  borne  the  second  of  these  designations.     We 

"Preface  to  Variornm  edition  of  Much  Ado  About  Nothing  (VhMaAe\vb.ia.,  1899),  p.  xiv. 

162 


Albert  H.  Tolman 


should  expect  the  two  companion  plays  to  be  similar  in  style  and  versification.  Es- 
pecially should  we  expect  them  to  agree  in  tone,  in  spirit  and  mental  attitude,  in  the 
mood  which  produced  them  and  the  mood  which  they  produce.  About  the  same 
proportion  of  jest  and  earnest  would  probably  appear  in  each. 

Just  how  far  the  two  plays  may  fairly  be  expected  to  correspond  in  structure  it  is 
hard  to  say.  The  dramatist  is  so  dependent  upon  the  nature  of  his  material  that  a 
very  high  degree  of  structural  agreement,  or  similarity,  even  between  two  companion 
pieces,  is  hardly  to  be  looked  for.  Still,  some  correspondence  of  action  to  action, 
feature  to  feature,  and  character  to  character,  would  be  probable.  We  may  look  upon 
agreement  with  Lovers  Labour's  Lost  in  style  and  versification,  agreement  in  tone, 
and  correspondence  in  dramatic  structure,  as  three  more  points  to  be  considered  in 
connection  with  any  play  that  is  proposed  as  a  claimant  for  the  title  Lovers  Labour's 
Won. 

It  seems  probable,  also,  that  the  play  referred  to  by  Meres,  if  compared  with 
Lovers  Labour'' s  Lost,  would  show  many  detailed  similarities  of  thought  and  expres- 
sion. 

We  have  thus  mentioned  seven  criteria,  of  various  degrees  of  cogency,  by  which 
we  may  test  the  proposal  to  accept  any  particular  comedy  of  Shakespeare  as  Love's 
Labour's  Won  under  another  name.  To  summarize  these  seven  points  in  a  few  words, 
we  may  call  them :  absence  from  Meres's  list,  date,  aptness  of  Meres's  title,  similarity 
to  Love's  Labour's  Lost  in  style  and  versification,  in  tone,  in  structure,  in  details  of 
thought  and  language.  In  treating  each  separate  theory  that  we  take  up,  it  will 
usually  be  sufficient  to  refer  to  only  those  topics,  or  tests,  among  the  seven  just  men- 
tioned, under  which  definite  evidence  is  presented. 

The  various  theories  which  have  been  advanced  concerning  Love's  Labour^s  Won 
will  be  considered  in  the  following  order: 

I.  That  Love's  Labour'' s  Won  has  been  lost. 

II.  That  it  is  to  be  identified  with  Lovers  Labour's  Lost. 

III.  With  A  Midsummer-Nighfs  Dream. 

IV.  With  The  Tempest. 

V.  With  All's  Well  That  Ends  Well. 

VI.  With  Much  Ado  About  Nothing. 

VII.  With  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew. 

It  will  be  useful  to  have  before  us  also  the  chronological  order  in  which  these 
theories  were  made  public.  So  far  as  the  writer  can  determine,  the  above  views  were 
put  forth  in  the  following  succession:" 

1.  AWs  Well;  proposed  by  Farmer  in  1767. 

2.  The  Tempest;  by  Hunter,  1839. 

3.  Love's  Labour's  Lost;  by  a  writer  in  27ie  Quarterly  Eeview,  1840. 

4.  That  Love's  Labour'' s  Won  has  been  lost;  proposed  by  the  same  Quarterly 
Reviewer  as  an  alternative  solution,  1840. 

UBeferences  will  be  given  later  undei  the  separate  theoiies. 

163 


8  Shakespeabe's  "Love's  Labour's  Won" 

5.  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew;  by  Craik,  1857. 

6.  Much  Ado  About  Nothing;  by  Brae,  1860. 

7.  A  Midsummer-Nighf s  Dream;  by  von  Westenholz,  1902. 

As  might  be  expected  in  view  of  the  variety  of  opinions  just  indicated,  there  have 
not  been  wanting  those  who  have  either  suggested  or  affirmed  that  the  question  will 
never  admit  of  any  fairly  decisive  settlement  unless  new  evidence  bearing  upon  it 
shall  come  to  light.  This  inability  to  form  any  decided  opinion  may  perhaps  be  said 
to  constitute  an  eighth  answer  to  the  problem;  but  it  has  seemed  best  not  to  classify 
and  treat  this  together  with  the  seven  more  positive  theories.  The  statements  of  some 
who  hold  this  opinion  against  opinions,  or  incline  toward  it,  will  be  noted  at  the  close 
of  the  paper. 

I.      THE   VIEW   THAT   THE   PLAY   CALLED    "LOVE'S   LABOUB's   WON"    HAS   BEEN   LOST 

A  writer  in  the  Quarterly  Review  is  the  sole  representative  of  the  theory  con- 
cerning Love's  Labour's  Won  which  is  to  be  discussed  in  the  next  division  of  this 
paper.  As  an  alternative  to  that  theory,  however,  he  considers  the  view  that  the  play 
in  question  has  been  lost,  to  have  much  probability.  In  opposing  Hunter's  advocacy 
of  The  Tempest  as  the  play  sought  for,  he  says: 

Why  should  Mr.  Himter  think  it  improbable  that  a  play  of  Shakespeare's  should  be  lost  ? 
Siu^ly,  in  the  troubled  times  of  the  fanatical  and  anti-theatrical  generation  which  succeeded 
him,  it  was  much  more  probable  that,  unless  published  immediately  after  his  death,  any  work 
of  our  immortal  dramatist's  should  be  destroyed  than  preserved." 

Halliwell-Phillipps  is  strongly  inclined  to  the  view  that  our  play  has  entirely 
disappeared.     His  words  are: 

Love  Labours  Won,  a  production  which  is  nowhere  else  alluded  to,  is  one  of  the  numerous 
works  of  that  time  which  have  long  since  perished,  imless  its  graceful  appellation  be  the  original 
or  a  secondary  title  of  some  other  comedy." 

In  his  recent  Introduction  to  Shakespeare  Professor  Dowden  puts  the  matter  thus: 
The  Love's  Labour's  Won  which  Meres  names  may  be  a  lost  play  of  Shakespeare,  or  pos- 
sibly, as  has  been  conjectiured.  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well  in  an  earl'er  form  may  have  borne 
this  title." 

The  fact  that  Fletcher's  comedy  The  Wild-Ooose  Chase  had  been  "long  lost" 
when  the  folio  edition  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  appeared  in  1647  might  be  thought 
to  support  the  hypothesis  now  before  us  concerning  Love's  Labour's  Won.  But  the 
publisher  in  his  address  to  the  readers  lamented  the  absence  of  The  Wild-Ooose  Chase 
as  the  only  omission  in  his  volume.  Moreover,  the  play  was  soon  recovered,  and  was 
published  in  1652. 

We  should  note,  however,  that  there  is  no  early  mention  of  AlVs  Well  that  Ends 
Well,  or  allusion  to  it ; "  also  that  the  only  supposed  early  reference  to  Measure  for  Meas- 

^i  Quarterly  Bewteir,  Vol.  LXV  (1840),  p.  481.  ments  in  the  next  paragraph  concerning  The  Wild^oote 

n  Outlines  of  the  Life  of  Bhalcespeare,  10th  ed.  (London,       Ca<»e,  see  Wabd,  A  History  of  English  Dramatio  Uter- 
1898)  Vol.  I  p.  172.  ature,  Vol.  II,  2d  ed.  (London,  1899),  p.  707. 

18  London  and  New  York,  n.  d.,  p.  30.-For  the  state-  "  Hkbfoed,  Svenley  8h.,  Vol.  m,  p.  111. 

164 


Albert  H.  Tolman  9 


ure  is  one  that  we  could  not  posBibly  recognize  if  we  did  not  possess  the  text.'"  It  is  not 
impossible  that  an  early  comedy  of  Shakespeare  should  so  far  disappear  from  men's 
knowledge  that  the  only  trace  to  reach  us  should  be  the  mention  of  the  title  by  a  single 
writer.  We  cannot  be  sure  that  no  early  and  relatively  unimportant  play  of  Shake- 
speare had  disappeared,  simply  because  the  editors  of  the  Folio  said  nothing  about  any 
such  loss. 

II.    "love's  laboub's  lost" 

The  Quarterly  Reviewer  whose  article  has  been  noticed  in  the  previous  section, 
offers  also  the  following  suggestion: 

May  not  Love's  Labours  Won  be  the  second  part  of  the  title  of  Love's  Labours  Lost  t  The 
passage  in  Meres,  where  the  names  immediately  follow  each  other,  would  seem  to  countenance 
such  a  conjectiue;  and  the  story  of  the  comedy  would  fully  bear  it  out.  In  it  Love's  Labours- 
comic  labours  —  are  both  lost  and  toon:  lost,  because  they  led  to  a  year  of  penance;  and  vxm, 
because,  at  the  end  of  that  year,  they  were  to  receive  their  reward."' 

The  fact,  already  referred  to,  that  Tieck  gave  the  title  Liebes  Leid  und  Lust  to 
the  German  translation  of  this  play,  is  an  interesting  recognition  of  the  truth  of  the 
last  sentence  quoted. 

When  one  reads  the  passage  from  Meres  that  furnishes  the  basis  of  our  whole 
discussion,  it  seems  perfectly  clear  that  he  mentions  by  name  six  different  tragedies  and 
six  different  comedies,  all  by  Shakespeare.  Dowden  makes  the  natural  comment:  "  It 
will  be  noticed  that  Meres  mentions  six  plays  of  each  kind,  preserving  a  balanced  sym- 
metry which  he  affects."  Dowden  then  adds:  "Possibly  he  made  omissions,  possibly 
he  pressed  into  his  list  the  doubtful  Titus,  with  the  object  of  equalising  the  number 
of  tragedies  and  comedies  named  by  him."  ^ 

How  far  does  Meres  "affect  a  balanced  symmetry"  in  the  sketch  where  occurs 
the  passage  that  we  are  seeking  to  interpret?  It  is  impossible  for  us  to  reprint  the 
entire  essay ;  but,  as  the  six  remaining  references  to  Shakespeare  fairly  represent  the 
style  of  the  disquisition,  and  as  they  have  an  independent  interest  for  students  of  the 
great  dramatist,  they  are  given  here: 

As  the  Greeke  tongue  is  made  famous  and  eloquent  by  Homer,  Hesiod,  Euripedes,  Aeschilus, 
Sophocles,  Pindarus,  Phocylides,  and  Aristophanes ;  and  the  Latine  tongue  by  Virgill,  Ouid, 
Horace,  Silius  Italicus,  Lucanus,  Lucretius,  Ansonius  and  Claudianus;  so  the  English 
tongue  is  mightily  enriched,  and  gorgeouslie  inuested  in  rare  ornaments  and  resplendent  abili- 
ments  by  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Spencer,  Daniel,  Drayton,  Warner,  Shakespeare,  Marlow  and 
Chapman, 

As  Ouid  saith  of  his  worke; 

lamque  opus  exegi,  quod  nee  louis  ira,  nee  ignis. 
Nee  poterit  ferrum,  nee  edax  abolere  vetustas. 

And  as  Horace  saith  of  his;  Exegi  monumentum  aere  perennius ;  Regalique  situ  pyrami- 
dumaltius;  Quod  nonimber  edax;  Non  Aquilo  impotens possit  diruere ;  aut  innumerabilis 

Mlbid.,  p.  231.  to Shakspere  Primer  (New  York,  1879),  p.  34. 

ai  Quarterly  Beview,  Vol.  LXV  (1840),  p.  482. 

165 


10  Shakespeabe's  "Love's  Labodb's  Won" 

annorum  series  d;  fuga  temporum.-  so  say  I  severally  of  sir  Philip  Sidneys,  Spencers,  Daniels, 
Draytons,  Shakespeares,  and  Warners  workes; 

Non  louis  ira  .•  imbres :  Mars  .•  ferrum  .•  flamma,  senectus, 

Hoc  opiis  unda  .•  lues  .•  turbo  .•  venena  ruent. 
Et  quanquam  ad  pulcherrimum  hoc  opus  euertendum  tres  UK  Dij 

conspirabunt,  Cronus,  Vulcanus,  &  pater  ipse  gentis; 
Non  tamen  annorum  series,  non  flamma,  nee  ensis, 
Aeternum  potuit  hoc  abolere  Decus, 
********** 
As  Pindarus,  Anacreon  and  Callimachus  among  the  Greekes;  and  Horace  and  Catullus 
among  the  Latines  are  the  best  Lyrick  Poets:  so  in  this  faculty  the  best  among  our  Poets  are 
Spencer  who  excelleth  in  all  kinds)  Daniel,  Drayton,  Shakespeare,  Bretton. 

As  these  Tragicke  Poets  flourished  in  Greece,  Aeschylus,  Euripedes,  Sophocles,  Alexander 
Aetolus,  Achaeus  Erithriaeus,  Astydamas  Atheneinsis,  Apollodorus  Tarsensis,  Nicomachus 
Phrygius,  Thespis  Atticus,  and  Timon  ApoHoniates;  imd  these  among  the  Latines,  Accius,  M. 
Attilius,  Pomponius  Secundus  and  Seneca;  so  these  are  our  best  for  Tragedie,  the  Lord  Buck- 
hurst,  Doctor  Leg  of  Cambridge,  Doctor  Edes  of  Oxforde,  maister  Edward  Ferris,  the  Authour 
of  the  Mirrour  for  Magistrates,  Marlow,  Peele,  Watson,  Kid,  Shakespeare,  Drayton,  Chapman, 
Decker  and  Beniamin  lohnson. 

*  *  *  *  **  «  *  *  * 

The  best  Poets  for  Comedy  among  the  Greeks  are  these,  Menander,  Aristophanes,  Eupolis 
Atheniensis,  Alexis  Terius,  Nicostratus,  Amipsias  Atheniensis,  Anaxandrides  Rhodius, 
Aristonymus,  Archippus  Atheniensis  and  Callias  Atheniensis;  and  among  the  Latines,  Plau- 
tus,  Terence,  Naeuius,  Sext.  Turpilius,  Licinius  Imbrex,  and  Virgilius  Romanus :  so  the  best 
for  Comedy  amongst  vs  bee,  Edward  Earle  of  Oxforde,  Doctor  Gager  of  Oxforde,  Maister 
Rowley  once  a  rare  Scholler  of  learned  Pembrooke  Hall  in  Cambridge,  Maister  Edwardes  one  of 
her  Maiesties  Chappell,  eloquent  and  wittie  lohn  Lilly,  Lodge,  Gascoyne,  Greene,  Shakespeare, 
Thomas  Nash,  Thomas  Heywood,  Anthony  Mundye  our  best  plotter.  Chapman,  Porter,  Wilson, 
Hathway,  and  Henry  Chettle. 

********** 
As  these  are  famous  among  the  Greeks  for  Elegie,  Melanthus,  Mymnerus  Colophonius, 
Olympius  Mysius,  Parthenius'''  Nicaeus,  Philetas  Cous,  Theogenes  Megarensis  and  Pigres 
Halicamassaeus ;  and  these  among  the  Latines,  Maecenas,  Quid,  Tibullus,  Propertius,  T. 
Valgius,  Cassius  Seuerus  &  Clodius  Sabinus;  so  these  are  the  most  passionate  among  vs  to 
bewaile  and  bemoane  the  perplexities  of  Loue,  Henrie  Howard  Earle  of  Surrey,  sir  Thomas 
Wyat  the  elder,  sir  Francis  Brian,  sir  Philip  Sidney,  sir  Walter  Rawley,  sir  Edward  Dyer, 
Spencer,  Daniel,  Drayton,  Shakespeare,  Whetstone,  Gascoyne,  Samvsll  Page  sometines  fel- 
lowe  of  Corpus  Christi  Colledge  in  Oxford,  Churchyard,  Bretton?* 

In  the  first  of  the  above  passages,  eight  Greek  and  eight  Koman  writers  are  mated 
with  eight  Elizabethans.  In  the  second  passage,  there  is  no  "  balanced  symmetry." 
In  each  of  the  four  remaining  quotations  there  seems  to  be  some  attempt  to  make  the 
number  of  classical  writers  mentioned  equal  to  the  number  of  Englishmen ;  but  under 

23  Ingleby  and  Arber  have  no  comma  hero ;  Halliwell-  nius  and  Nicaeus :   Witt»  Academy,  a  Treaturie  of  Goulden 

Phillipps  has  one.    According  to  Suidas,  Parthenius  the  Sentences,  etc by  Fr:  M (London,  1636),  Part 

elegiac  writer  was  a  Niceean;  and  the  word  Nicaeus  c&nDot  2,  p.  e2&.— Ancient  critical  essays  upon  English  Poets  and 

here  be  explained  in  any  other  way.    Miss  Louise  Prouty,  Poesy,  ed.  by  J.  Haslewood,  1815. 

of  the  Boston  Public  Library,  states  that  the  two  following  ushakspere  Allusion-Books,  Part  I,  edited  by  CM. 

reprints  of  this  passage  show  no  comma  between  Parthe-  Inoleby  (London,  1874),  pp.  157, 160-62. 

166 


Albert  H.  Tolman  11 


the  elegiac  poets,  according  to  the  punctuation  of  Ingleby  and  Arber,  fifteen  English 
writers  are  set  over  against  seven  Greeks  and  seven  Romans.  The  symmetry  of  the 
passage  concerning  "Poets  for  Comedy" is  imperfect  in  all  three  of  the  reprints  acces- 
sible to  the  writer;  ten  Greek  and  six  Roman  writers  are  balanced  by  seventeen 
Elizabethans. 

The  suggestion  of  the  Quarterly  Reviewer  is,  practically,  that  Meres  pressed  into 
service  the  double  title  of  a  single  comedy  in  order  to  secure  a  merely  formal  sym- 
metry, and  thus  make  the  titles  of  five  comedies  balance  those  of  six  tragedies.  Since 
a  similar  explanation  is  brought  forward  more  distinctly  by  von  Westenholz  in  the  next 
division  of  this  paper,  the  discussion  of  the  question  will  be  deferred  until  then. 
The  natural  presumption  is  against  this  method  of  meeting  the  difficulty. 

III.     "A  midsummer-night's  dream" 

The  view  just  examined  makes  Love's  Labour's  Won  another  name  for  the  play 
Love's  Labour's  Lost.  But  there  is  about  the  same  grammatical  and  prima  facie 
basis  for  another  suggestion,  namely,  that  Lovers  Labour's  Won  is  the  first  title,  or 
the  first  half  of  the  title,  of  the  comedy  which  follows  it  in  Meres's  list,  A  Midsummer- 
Night  's  Dream.  However,  this  view  seems  to  have  been  first  put  forward  in  the 
present  year  (1902)  in  an  acute  and  gracefully  worded  article  by  a  German  scholar, 
Professor  von  Westenholz.'"' 

If  we  disregard  for  the  moment  the  manifest  objection  that  Meres  seems  to  men- 
tion six  different  comedies  to  balance  six  tragedies,  it  is  really  surprieing  how  much 
von  Westenholz  finds  in  support  of  his  conjecture.  He  insists  that  in  a  play  which  is 
to  be  identified  with  Love's  Labour's  Won,  we  must  expect  to  find  a  parallelism  with 
Love's  Labour's  Lost  corresponding  to  the  intentional  parallelism  in  the  titles. 
Agreement  in  the  general  tone,  and  marked  correspondences  in  the  action  and  the 
characters,  are  to  be  looked  for. 

Von  Westenholz  finds  only  two  comedies  in  all  those  of  Shakespeare  which  in 
general  plan  and  in  tone  {nach  Anlage  und  Tonart)  can  be  accepted  as  mentally  and 
spiritually  related  [geistig  verwandt)  to  Love's  Labour's  Lost.  These  are  As  You 
Like  It  and  A  Midsummer-Nighf s  Dream;  and  in  the  former  of  these  the  other 
correspondences  desired  are  wanting. 

This  critic  considers  that  the  Duke,  Lysander,  and  Demetrius,  in  A  Midsummer- 
Night's  Dream,  correspond  to  three  of  the  lovers  in  Love's  Labour^s  Lost,  the 
King,  Longaville,  and  Dumain.  He  even  finds  the  agreement  in  the  initials  of  the 
courtiers'  names  to  be  significant,  since  the  Elizabethans  did  "something  afPect  the 
letter." 

Biron  as  a  lover  has  no  analogue  in  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  but  as 
humorist  and  interpreter  of  the  action  we  find  a  counterpart  in  Puck.  It  is  Biron 
and  Puck  who  express  the  contrast  in  the  outcome  of  the  two  plays  in  contrasted 

3S  "Shakespeares  'Qewonnene  laebesmtth,'  "  in  the  Beilage  zur  Allgemeinen  Zeitung,  Janaaiy  U,  1902,  pp.  77-9. 

167 


12  Shakespeabe's  "Love's  Laboub's  Won" 

passages,  which  remind  us  at  once  of  the  titles  Love's  Labour's  Lost  and  Lovers 
Labour's  Won: 

Our  wooing  doth  not  end  like  an  old  play; 

Jack  hath  not  Jill. 

—L.  L.  Lost,  V,  ii,  884, 885. 

Jack  shall  have  Jill ; 
Nought  shall  go  iU. 

—A  M.-N.  Dream,  III,  ii,  461,  462. 

The  daring  suggestion  is  made  that  perhaps  Puck  is  called  Robin  because  that 
name  contains  the  same  letters  that  are  in  Biron.  We  may  add  that  the  strange  iden- 
tification of  the  dainty  Puck  with  Robin  Goodfellow  [A.  M.-N.  D.,  II,  i,  34),  the 
toiling  "lubber  fiend"  of  Milton's  L'' Allegro,  is  thus  given  a  still  stranger  explanation. 

Von  Westenholz  sets  over  against  each  other  the  play,  or  procession,  of  the  Nine 
Worthies,  in  one  comedy,  and  the  foolish  characters  who  produce  it,  and,  in  the  other, 
the  play  of  Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  and  the  craftsmen-actors.  This  is  in  many  ways  a 
striking  parallel.  The  correspondence  which  is  noted  between  Armado's  lofty  wooing 
of  Jaquenetta  and  Titania's  infatuation  for  Bottom  is  less  marked. 

The  fact  that  Bottom  jests  with  each  of  the  other  servants  of  Titania  but  not  with 
Moth  {A  M.-N.  D.,  Ill,  i;  IV,  i),  von  Westenholz  explains  by  the  bold  supposition 
that  Moth  was  a  character  added  after  the  completion  of  the  play,  solely  for  the  pur- 
pose of  reminding  us  of  the  little  page  bearing  that  name  in  Love's  Labour''s  Lost. 

It  is  suggested  by  von  Westenholz  that  Lovers  Labour's  Lost  failed  to  keep  the 
stage  because  of  its  weakness  as  an  acting  play;  that  this  setting  aside  of  its  com- 
panion-piece took  away  the  special  significance  of  the  title  Z/ore's  Labour's  Won;  and 
that  the  play  which  had  borne  this  last  name  came  to  be  known  later  as  A  Midsummer- 
Night'' s  Dream.  This  new  appellation  should  be  interpreted  as  a  fanciful  sugges- 
tion concerning  the  origin  of  the  play ;  thus  we  escape  the  difficulty  that  the 
action  closes  on  the  evening  of  May  Day.  Meres  is  supposed  to  have  used  the  double 
title  both  for  the  sake  of  greater  clearness,  the  play  having  borne  each  name  in  turn, 
and  especially  that  he  might  preserve  a  superficial  balance  between  the  two  parts  of 
his  list. 

The  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  which  is  believed  to  have  been  in  existence,  was 
perhaps  excluded  because  of  its  excessive  borrowing  from  its  source,  the  comedy  called 
The  Taming  of  a  Shrew  (wegen  der  allzu  engen  Anlehnung  an  die  Vorlage),  or  for 
other  reasons. 

To  say  that  Meres  put  in  a  double  title  for  one  comedy  in  order  to  preserve  an 
outward  equality  between  the  two  divisions  of  his  catalogue,  skilfully  turns  the  flank 
of  those  who  have  relied  upon  the  symmetry  and  balance  of  the  "comparatiue  dis- 
course" as  proving  that  each  half  of  the  list  contains  six  plays.  According  to  von 
Westenholz,  Meres  was  indeed  so  fond  of  outward  symmetry  that  he  was  content  to 
balance  six  titles  representing  five  comedies  against  six  titles  representing  six  tragedies. 
In   saying  this,  von  Westenholz  is  really  supporting  the  theory  of  the  Quarterly 

168 


or  THE 


■VNIVE^^SJTY 
Albebt  H.  Tolman  13 


Reviewer  concerning  Lovers  Labour's  Lost,  examined  in  the  previous  section,  just  as 
much  as  his  own. 

One  cannot  help  feeling  that  it  would  have  been  more  natural  for  Francis  Meres 
to  drop  one  of  the  tragedies  from  his  catalogue,  naming  only  five  dramas  of  each  kind, 
than  to  set  over  against  an  actual  play  a  mere  cipher,  a  dummy  title. 

Von  Westenholz  might  well  have  called  attention  to  the  fact  known  to  all  that  the 
Folio  and  the  early  quartos  show  us  not  a  single  play  of  "Henry  the  4.",  as  cited  by 
Meres,  but  two  plays,  The  First  Part  of  King  Henry  the  Fourth  and  The  Second 
Part  of  King  Henry  the  Fourth.  Even  if  we  admit  that  Meres  felt  his  title 
"Henry  the  4."  to  represent  two  closely  related  dramas  and  not  one  long  drama,  this 
method  of  reducing  or  compressing  seven  titles  to  six  in  the  list  of  tragedies  offers  little 
support  to  the  conjecture  that  five  real  titles  were  extended  to  six  apparent  ones  in  the 
list  of  comedies. 

The  First  Folio,  as  is  well  known,  prints  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  in  three  sepa- 
rate divisions,  called  in  the  preliminary  "Catalogue,"  or  table  of  contents,  "Comedies, 
Histories,  Tragedies";  and  the  "Histories,"  the  plays  named  from  English  kings  sub- 
sequent to  the  Norman  Conquest,  are  given  in  their  historical  order.  Von  Westenholz 
argues  from  these  facts  that  it  is  very  probable  that  the  order  in  which  the  plays  are 
printed  in  the  two  other  divisions  of  the  Folio  is  based  upon  some  real  principle  or 
principles,  although  the  existing  arrangement  has  not  seemed  to  show  any  distinct  plan. 
He  finds  it  significant  that  Love's  Labour'' s  Lost  is  followed  immediately  in  the  Folio 
by  what  he  believes  to  be  its  companion  play,  A  Midsummer-Night 's  Dream.  Meres 
names  these  two  plays  together  and  in  the  same  order,  if  we  admit  that  A  Midsummer- 
Nighfs  Dream  is  first  designated  by  a  former  title  Lovers  Labour's  Won. 

It  is  a  striking  fact,  which  the  present  writer  has  not  seen  noted,  that  the 
comedies  named  by  Meres,  disregarding  the  uncertain  Love's  Labour''s  Won,  are 
printed  in  the  Folio  in  the  order  in  which  he  names  them,  though  not  consecutively. 
This  is  made  clear  in  the  following  table  : 

Folio  Order  Order  in  Heres 

The  Tempest 

The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  Gentlemen  of  Verona 

The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor 

Measure  for  Measure 

The  Comedy  of  Errors  Errors 

Much  Ado  about  Nothing 

Love's  Labour's  Lost  Loue  labors  lost 

Loue  labours  wonne 
A  Midsummer- Night's  Dream  Midsummers  night  dreame 

The  Merchant  of  Venice  Merchant  of  Venice 

As  You  Lake  It 
The  Taming  of  the  Shrew 
All's  Well  that  Ends  Well 
Tioelfth  Night;  or,  What  You  Will 
The  Winter's  Tale 

169 


14  Shakespeare's  "Love's  Labour's  Won" 

How  shall  we  account  for  this  strange  agreement  in  the  order  of  the  Folio  and  of 
Meres  ?  Can  it  be  that  the  editors  of  the  Folio  were  acquainted  with  the  passage  in 
the  "  comparatiue  discourse,"  and  consciously  or  unconsciously  made  their  arrangement 
agree  therewith  ?  If  the  list  of  Meres  is  to  conform  throughout  to  the  order  of  the 
Folio,  as  it  does  in  the  case  of  the  five  known  comedies  which  it  contains,  then  we  are 
limited,  apparently,  to  the  three  theories  concerning  Lovers  Labour's  Won  that  have 
now  been  presented,  namely :  Love's  Labour's  Won  has  been  lost ;  the  name  is  a  second 
title  for  Love's  Labour' s  Lost ;  the  name  is  a  first  title  ior  A  Midsummer-Night's 
Dream. 

The  acuteness  and  skill  with  which  von  Westenholz  has  worked  out  and  presented 
his  theory  almost  blind  one  to  to  its  fundamental  difficulty.  Some  of  his  arguments 
have  undeniable  force. 

IV.      "THE   tempest" 

Much  attention  has  been  given  during  the  past  thirty  years  to  the  question  of  the 
chronological  order  in  which  Shakespeare's  plays  were  written.  In  other  words,  men 
have  studied  more  carefully  than  ever  before  the  progressive  development  of  Shake- 
speare's mind  and  art.  Every  student  of  the  subject  knows  that,  as  one  result  of  this 
inquiry,  The  Tempest  has  come  to  be  accepted  as  one  of  the  latest  plays  of  its  great 
author.  The  comedy  shows  in  a  high  degree  those  peculiarities  of  versification,  style, 
and  spirit  which  have  been  found  to  mark  the  closing  period  of  Shakespeare's  writing. 
It  seems  really  impossible  that  the  play  can  have  been  in  existence  at  the  time  when 
Meres  wrote  his  "  comparatiue  discourse." 

We  shall  therefore  give  but  little  space  to  the  theory  of  Rev.  Joseph  Hunter  that 
Love's  Labour's  Won  is  a  name  that  was  once  given  to  The  Tempest.  This  view  was 
published  in  a  separate  Disquisition  in  1839,  and  Hunter  enlarged  and  fortified  his 
statement  of  it  in  his  New  Illustrations  of  Shakespeare  in  1845.'" 

In  what  way  is  it  [asks  Himter]  that  Prospero  makes  trial  of  the  love  of  Ferdinand  for 
Miranda?  How,  but  by  imposing  upon  him  certain  labours  f  The  particular  kind  of  labour  is 
the  placing  in  a  pile  logs  of  firewood.  He  serves  in  this  as  Jacob  did  for  Rachel,  winning  his 
bride  from  her  austere  father  by  them.  In  other  words  he  proves  the  sincerity  of  his  affection 
to  the  satisfaction  of  Prospero  by  the  faithfulness  with  which  he  performs  these  labours,  and 
thus  his  love  labours  win  the  consent  of  Prospero  to  their  union." 

Concerning  Hunter's  fundamental  contention  that  Love's  Labour's  Won  is  a  fit- 
ting designation  for  The  Tempest,  Knight  observes: 

Our  belief  in  the  significancy  of  Shakspere's  titles  would  be  at  an  end  if  even  a  "  main 
incident "  was  to  suggest  a  name,  instead  of  the  general  course  of  the  thought  or  action.'" 

Says  Fumess  upon  the  same  point: 

For  us  who  are  not  convinced  by  Himter's  arguments,  it  is  sufficient  to  remember  that 
Prospero's  object  in  subjecting  the  yoxmg  Prince  to^s  power  was  gained  as  much  after  the  first 

MVol.  I,  Part  n,  pp.  123-89.    Abundant  extracts  are  28Edition  Shakspere,  2d  ed.  (London,  1842) ,  Introdnc- 

given  in  Fdbness's   Variorum   edition  of    The   Tempest  tion  to  AlPe  Well,  Vol.  I,  p.  335. 
(Philadelphia,  1892),  pp.  284-94.  Instead  of  the  full  title  of  an  edition  of  the  complete 

riNeui  IllustratioM,  Vol.  I,  Part  II  (London,  1845),  p.  works  of  the  dramatist,  the   abbreviation   "Ed.  Shako- 

133.  speare  "  (Shakspere,  etc.)  will  sometimes  be  used. 

170 


Albebt  H.  Tolman  15 


[log]  had  been  carried,  as  after  the  thousandth,  and  that  the  labour  in  itself  amounted  to  noth- 
ing, and  could  really  win  nothing;  Miranda's  hand  was  not  set  as  the  price  of  it,  and  in  fact 
Prospero  had  adopted  Ferdinand  as  his  future  son-in-law  before  he  was  shipwrecked,  so  that  it 
could  not  have  been  any  labours  of  Ferdinand  that  won  Miranda.^' 

Hunter  was  never  able  to  gain  adherents  to  his  view,  and  the  later  developments 
of  Shakespearean  study  have  deprived  this  theory  both  of  probability  and  interest  The 
further  arguments  for  and  against  it  are  accessible  in  Fumess's  edition  of  The  Tempest, 
and  need  not  be  detailed  here. 

V.     "all's  well  that  ends  well" 

We  have  noted  that  Tyrwhitt  first  called  attention  to  Meres's  book  in  1766.  Parmer, 
in  his  essay  On  the  Learning  of  Shakespeare,  1767,  was  the  first  to  offer  a  suggestion 
as  to  the  meaning  of  the  enigmatical  title  found  in  Meres.  He  speaks  of  "  All's  Well 
that  Ends  Well,  or,  as  I  suppose  it  to  have  been  sometimes  called.  Love's  Labour 
Wonne.'"" 

Farmer's  conjecture  was  probably  suggested  by  the  fitness  of  the  title  Lovers 
Labour's  Won,  considered  by  itself,  to  serve  as  a  designation  for  AlVs  Well.  Malone 
in  1778,  in  the  first  edition  of  his  essay,  An  Attempt  to  Ascertain  the  Order  in  which 
the  Plays  of  Shakspeare  Were  Written,  accepted  Farmer's  conjecture,  and  gave  to 
AlVs  Well  the  date  1598,  the  very  year  when  we  are  to  suppose  that  it  is  mentioned 
by  Meres  under  another  name.  "No  other  of  our  authour's  plays," Malone  declared, 
"  could  have  borne  that  title  [Love's  Labour's  Won]  with  so  much  propriety." " 
Nevertheless,  the  mature  style  of  certain  portions  caused  Malone  later  to  assign  1606 
as  a  more  probable  date  for  the  writing  of  this  comedy.*^ 

The  difficulty  which  compelled  this  scholar  to  abandon  his  first  opinion  would 
probably  have  prevented  a  general  acceptance  of  Farmer's  conjecture,  had  not  another 
peculiarity  of  AWs  Well  made  it  seem  entirely  feasible  to  combine  in  one  theory  all 
that  was  essential  in  both  of  Malone's  opinions,  apparently  contradictory  though  they 
were.  According  to  Collier,  Coleridge  expressed  the  opinion  "in  1811,  and  again  in 
1818,  though  it  is  not  found  in  his  '  Literary  Remains,'  that  '  All's  Well  that  Ends 
Well,'  as  it  has  come  down  to  us,  was  written  at  two  different,  and  rather  distant 
periods  of  the  poet's  life.  He  pointed  out  very  clearly  two  distinct  styles,  not  only  of 
thought,  but  of  expression."" 

In  his  Lectures  on  Shakspere,  as  now  collected  and  published,  Coleridge  speaks 
of  AlVs  Well  as  having  been  "originally  intended  as  the  counterpart  of  'Love's  La- 
bour's Lost.' "  "     It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  he  accepted  also  the  suggestion  of  Farmer. 

Two  facts  already  indicated — the  prima  facie  fitness  of  the  title  Love's  Labour^ s 
Won  to  designate  the  play  of  AlVs  Well,  and  the  apparent  existence  in  the  play  side  by 

MVariomm  od.  of  The  Tempest,  p.  288.  S2  Varioram  Shakespeare  of  1821,  edited  by  Bobwkll 

»OThe  Boswell-Malonb  Variorum  edition  of  Shako-  "^  Malone,  Vol.  II,  p.  406. 
speare  (London,  1821),  Vol.  I,  p.  314.  S3Bd.  Shakespeare,  J.  F.  CoLLIEB,  2d  ed.  (London, 

31  Edition  Shakspeare  (London,  1790),  Vol.  I,  Part  I,  ^858),  Vol.  H,  p.  529. 
p.  319.  MLoixdoa,188S(1883),  p.249. 

171 


16  Shakespeare's  "Love's  Laboue's  Won" 

side  of  two  widely  dissimilar  styles  of  writing — have  led  perhaps  the  majority  of  Shake- 
spearean students  at  the  same  time  to  accept  the  identification  proposed  by  Farmer, 
and  to  admit  that  portions  of  AlVs  Well  are  later  than  1598.  While  no  two  of  these 
critics  would  express  themselves  in  just  the  same  way,  Collier's  statement  of  the  matter 
is  a  fairly  representative  one  : 

My  notion  is  that  "  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well "  was  in  the  first  instance,  and  prior  to  1598, 
called  "Love's  Labour's  Won,"  and  that  it  had  a  clear  reference  to  "Love's  Labour's  Lost,"  of 
which  it  might  be  considered  the  counterpart.  It  was  then,  perhaps,  laid  by  for  some  years, 
and  revived  by  its  author,  with  alterations  and  additions,  about  1606  or  1606,  when  the  new  title 
of  "All's  Well  that  Ends  Well"  was  given  to  it." 

The  theory  that  in  the  title  Lotie  labours  wonne  Meres  refers  to  an  earlier 
form  of  the  play  AlVs  Well  that  Ends  Well  has  been  held  by  Coleridge  (as  already 
indicated),  Tieck,  Collier  (already  cited),  Lloyd,  Verplanck,  Dyce,  White,  Gervinus, 
von  Friesen,  Ward,  Elze,  Fleay  (first  opinion),  Furnivall,  Stokes,  Hudson,  Boyle, 
Brandes,  and  Herford." 

Those  scholars  who  believe  that  AlVs  Well  existed  in  its  present  form  as  early  as 
1598  are  able  to  identify  that  play  with  Lovers  Labour's  Won  without  any  reference 
to  the  question  whether  or  not  it  ever  underwent  a  revision.  This  is  in  general  the 
position  of  Farmer  (already  cited),  of  Drake  (who  was  perhaps  ignorant  of  Coleridge's 
opinion),  of  Ulrici,  Knight,  Staunton,  Delius,  W.  KOnig,  Kreyssig,  and  Sidney  Lee." 

The  critics  just  named  attach  no  importance  to  the  suggestion  that  AlVs  Well 
experienced  revision.  Knight,  to  be  sure,  speaks  of  the  possibility  that  the  comedy 
may  have  been  first  produced  "in  an  imperfect  form.""  W.  KOnig  thinks  that  a 
later  revision,  if  it  took  place  at  all,  cannot  have  been  of  any  importance.  Delius  finds 
no  grounds  for  the  view  that  AlVs  Well  was  composed  at  different  periods.  He  gives 
the  date  as  1698,  on  account  of  the  supposed  reference  in  Meres,  but  says  that  the 
style  of  the  play  would  suggest  a  later  period. 

30  Ed.  Shakespeare,  1858,  Vol.  n,  p.  530.  p.  336;  Fleay,  Shakapeare  Manual  (London,  1876  [1874]), 


"The  names  of  the  above  critics  are  given  approxi- 


pp.  224-6;  Fdbnitall,  Intro,  to  Leopold  Shakspere   (Lon- 


.,.       ,          ,•,       J         Aj.       jjj-iTi         don,  1881  [1877]),  p.  Ixi;  Stokes,  Chronological  Order  of 
mately  in  chronological  order.    A  date  added  m  brack-       „  ,'  „,  ,'    ,t  'lil.   «,»,    „„  „n_,,.  ir™=„„  it !. 


8h.'»  Play  (London,  1878),  pp.  110-13;  Hudson,  Harvard 
Shakespeare  (Boston,  1880-1),  Vol.  IV,  pp.  3-6;  BoTLE,  "AU's 
Well  that  Ends  Well  and  Love's  Labour's  Won,"  Mnglitche 
Studien,  Vol.  XIV  (1890),  pp.  408-21;    Beandes,  William 


ets  in  the  next  paragraph  represents  either  the  year  of  the 

original  edition  of  the  work  cited,  or  the  date  at  which 

the  opinion  in  question  is  believed  to  have  been  made 

public,  though  the  present  writer  ctumot  be  sure  what  is  ,^   ,  ,  ,  ,...         ,  _     ,.  ,    .         ...     , 

r        v,»»v  tk  f  h    k  I-  Shakespeare  (one-volume  edition  of  English  translation), 

V°°    I  ^T  ^"  u  .,  •     *i,    .11  (New  York,  1899),  pp.  47-9,  393,  399;  Hebeoed,  Eversley  Sh. 

The  authors  named  have  been  consulted  in  the  follow-  \      ,       .'        "  ,  %.„         ,,.  ,„ 

,  ,.,.  ni-     1  1  J   •     t7  .       J    Qu  1  (London,  1899) ,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  111-18. 

Ing  editions:  Tieck,  quoted  in  Knights   ed.  Shakspere 

(London,  1842  [1841]),  Vol.  I,  pp.  337,  338  (the  sets  of  Tieck  ='  Deakb,  Shakspeare  and  Bis  Timet  (London,  1817), 

consulted  seem  not  to  contain  aU  of  his  writings  on  Shake-  '^ol-  H.  PP-  *22,  423;  Uleici,  Shakespeare's  Dramatic  AH 

peare) ;  Lloto,  Critical  Essays  on  the  Plays  of  Sh.  (London,  (London,  no  date  [published  1839,  translated  1876]),  Vol.  I, 

1894  [in  Singer's  2d  ed.  of  Sh.,  1856]),  p.  141;  Veeplanck,  PP-  **>  ^0;  Kniqht,  ed.  Shakspere,  2d  ed.  (London,  1842 

QuotedbyWHiTE(seebelow),Vol.V,p.9;DYCE,I7ieTVorfai  [18*1]).  Vol.  I,  pp.  329-38;  Staunton,  The  Works  of  Sh., 

0/Sft.,5thed.  (London,  1886[1857]),Vol.in,p.l95;  White,  iUns.  by  Gilbeet   (London,  1881  [1857]),  Vol.  VI,  p.  125; 

The  »VorJ;»o/Sft.,  Vol.  V(Boston,1857),pp.7-10;QEEViNU8,  Delius,  Sftafcepcres   Werke,  neue  Ausg.  (Elberfeld,  1864), 

Shakespeare  Commentaries,  trans,  by   Bunnett,  5th  ed.  Einleitung  zu  AlVs  Well;  W.  KOniq,  Jahrbuch  d.  deuUchen 

(London,  1892  [3d  (Jerman  ed.,  1862]),  pp.  173,  174;  VON  Bh.-GeselUchaft,  Vol.    X  (1875),  p.  215;  Keetssio,   Vorle- 

WaaES,JahrbuchderdeutschenShakespeare-Gesellschaft,  sungenilber    5A.,  3te(Aufl.  (Berlin,  1877  [1862]),  Vol.  II,  p. 

Vol.  II  (1867),  pp.  48-54;  Wt.SD,  History  of  English  Dramatic  301;  S.liEB,  A  Life  of  William  Sh.  (New  York  and  London, 

Uterature,  Vol.  II,  2d  ed.  (London,  1899  [1875]),  pp.  117-19;  1898),  p.  162. 

Elze,  William  Sh.,  trans,  by  Sohuitz  (Iioadon,  1888  [1876]),  »  Edition  cited,  Vol.  I,  pp.  zliv,  338, 

'72 


Albert  H,  Tolman  17 


Some  of  those  who  uphold  the  view  of  Coleridge  are  very  positive  in  asserting 
that  AlVs  Well  contains  passages  written  at  widely  separated  dates.  White  and 
Verplanck  state  that  they  formed  this  opinion  before  learning  that  it  had  been  held  by 
Coleridge.  Hudson  and  Boyle  think  that  the  contrast  between  the  two  styles,  "the 
Poet's  rawest  and  ripest  styles  "  (Hudson),  is  pronounced.  Fumivall  declares  that 
"  no  intelligent  person  can  read  the  play  without  being  struck  by  the  contrast  of  early 
and  late  work  in  it." 

Boyle  has  probably  presented  more  fully  and  carefully  than  any  one  else  the  evi- 
dence for  the  view  that  AlVs  Well  has  been  revised  from  an  earlier  version;"  while 
Hertzberg,  who  does  not  accept  the  identification  with  Lovers  Labour^ s  Won,  has  given 
the  only  detailed  argument  known  to  the  present  writer  in  support  of  the  opinion  of 
Delius  that  AlVs  Well  was  written  at  one  burst  {aus  einem  Ouss).^ 

This  controversy  must  be  briefly  outlined  here.    The  following  passage  is  a  speci- 
men of  those  parts  of  AlVs  Well  that  are  considered  to  be  of  early  date: 
Helena.  The  great'st  grace  lending  grace, 

Ere  twice  the  horses  of  the  sim  shall  bring 
Their  fiery  torcher  his  diurnal  ring, 
Ere  twice  in  murk  and  occidental  damp 
Moist  Hesperus  hath  quench 'd  his  sleepy  lamp, 
Or  four  and  twenty  times  the  pilot's  glass 
Hath  told  the  thievish  minutes  how  they  pass. 
What  is  infirm  from  yoiu*  sound  parts  shall  fly. 
Health  shall  live  free,  and  sickness  freely  die. 

—  II,  i,  163-71. 

The  Marlowe-like  rhetoric  and  the  youthful  formalism  of  these  lines  are  noticeable. 
Other  portions  of  the  play  that  seem  to  show  Shakespeare's  early  style  are:  Helena's 
rhymed  soliloquy  at  the  close  of  the  first  scene — I,  i,  231-44;  and  the  indelicate  con- 
versation a  little  earlier  between  Helena  and  ParoUes — I,  i,  121-78.  The  hiatus  at 
1.  179  seems  to  indicate  that  parts  have  been  carelessly  patched  together. 

Shakespeare's  earlier  versification  seems  to  mark  portions  of  AlVs  Well.  All 
passages  in  which  rhymes  are  abundant  have  been  called  early  by  some,  irrespective  of 
deeper  considerations.  Herford  has  carefully  discriminated  and  summarized  the  evi- 
dence from  the  rhyme."  Some  rhymed  passages  are  plainly  of  an  early  type.  Hertz- 
berg points  out  the  number  and  quality  of  the  run-on  lines  {enjambements)  in  the  last 
speech  of  the  first  scene,  as  a  proof  that  it  cannot  be  early ;  but  the  fact  that  such 
lines  as  the  following  are  found  in  one  hundred  consecutive  lines  of  Lovers  Labour's 
Lost  seems  to  show  that  he  has  made  too  much  of  this:  V,  ii,  326,  327,  843,  351, 
355,  367,  376,  408,  416.     Note  for  example: 

(Biron)    This  is  the  ape  of  form,  monsieiu:  the  nice. 

That,  when  he  plays  at  tables,  chides  the  dice 

ssBnsIiscAeSittdten,  Vol.  XIV  (1890),  pp.  408-21.  Sh.-Gesellsohaft,  2t6  Aufl.  1897  (Ite,  1871),  Berlin;  Einlei- 

M  Shakespeare's  dramatische  Werke,  nach  der  Uebor-  *^S  ssn  Ende  gut,  AUes  gut,  Vol.  XI,  pp.  345-62. 

setzung  von  ....  Schlegel   tmd  ....  Tieck  ....  Tinter  "  27ie  Eversley  Sh.,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  111-13. 

Bedaction  von  H.  Uliici,  heraossegeben  dorch  die  deatsche 

173 


18  Shakespeabe's  "Love's  Laboub's  Won" 

In  honorable  tenns :  nay,  he  can  sing 
A  mean  most  meanly;  and  in  ushering 
Mend  him  who  can.  — V,  ii,  325-9. 

Arguments  for  the  early  date  of  portions  of  AlVs  Well  have  been  found  in  the 
colorless  personality  of  the  clown  and  his  lack  of  connection  with  the  action ;  *"  in  the 
fact  that  Parolles  seems  a  first  sketch  for  FalstafP  (Tieck) ;  in  the  indelicate  conversa- 
tions; in  the  agreements  of  thought  between  the  dialogue  of  Helena  and  Parolles 
already  referred  to  (I,  i,  121-78)  and  the  first  seventeen  of  the  Sonnets  (these  dwell 
upon  the  duty  of  having  offspring) ;  and  in  the  inconsistencies  in  the  portrayal  of 
Helena  and  Parolles." 

A  few  features  suggest  a  special  connection  of  All's  Well  with  Love's  Labour's 
Lost.  The  First  and  Second  Lords  in  one  play  and  one  of  the  four  suitors  in  the 
other  have  the  same  name,  Dumain.  Certain  similarities  exist  between  the  characters 
Parolles  and  Armado."  The  tone  of  the  indecorous  jesting  in  the  two  plays  is  very 
eimilar. 

No  better  example  can  be  given  of  the  mature  manner  that  marks  portions  of 
All's  Well  than  the  farewell  words  of  the  Coimtess  to  Bertram.  This  advice  reminds 
us  of  that  given  by  Polonius  to  Laertes,  but  surpasses  that  both  in  brevity  and  depth. 

Countess.    Be  thou  blest,  Bertram,  and  succeed  thy  father 
In  manners,  as  in  shape !  thy  blood  and  virtue 
Contend  for  empire  in  thee,  and  thy  goodness 
Share  with  thy  birthright  1    Love  all,  trust  a  few, 
Do  wrong  to  none :  be  able  for  thine  enemy 
Eather  in  power  than  use,  and  keep  thy  friend 
Under  thy  own  life's  key:  be  check'd  for  silence, 
But  never  tax'd  for  speech.    What  heaven  more  will, 
That  thee  may  furnish  and  my  prayers  pluck  down, 
Fall  on  thy  head  1  —  I,  i,  70-79. 

Other  passages  showing  Shakespeare's  riper  style  are:  Helena's  soliloquy  express- 
ing her  love  for  Bertram  —  I,  i,  90-109 ;  and  her  decision  to  leave  Rousillon  —  III, 
ii,  102-32. 

Some  of  the  maturer  passages  in  All's  Well  have  parallels  in  Hamlet  and  Meas- 
ure for  Measure.*^    One  connection  with  Hamlet  has  just  been  pointed  out. 

The  disagreements  between  the  dates  assigned  to  this  play  by  reputable  critics 
seem  to  demand  some  such  explanation  as  that  afforded  by  the  theory  that  an  early 
play  or  fragment  was  afterward  revised  or  completed.  The  dates  of  Knight,*"  1589-93, 
and  Ulrici,"  1591-92,  are  in  marked  contrast  with  that  of  Malone,**  1606.  Such  a 
difference  of  opinion  as  this  c£in  hardly  be  paralleled  in  the  case  of  another  of  Shake- 
speare's plays. 

<2  Von  Feiesen,  Jahrbuch,  Vol.  It,  p.  52.  «  Ed.  Shakspere,  2d  ed.,  Vol.  I,  p.  xlvi.    Judging  from 

..T,  „      ~   J.       ^  ,  -.r-r^         ......  Statements  in  Other  writers,  Knight  has  somewhere  given 

«  BOTLB,  Bng.  Studten,  Vol.  XIV,  pp.  «6-M.  ^^  ^^^  ^^  ^g^ 

"  Bbandes,  William  Sh.,  one-Tol.  ed.,  p.  O.  n  sk.'»  Dramatic  Art,  Vol.  II,  p.  410. 

45  Botlb,  p.  416;  Bbandbs,  pp.  393  fl.  <»The  Boswell-Halone  Variorum,  1821,  Vol.  II,  p.  408, 

17* 


Albert  H.  Tolman  19 


A  direct  reference  to  the  supposed  former  title  of  the  comedy  has  been  seen  by  some 
in  one  line  of  AlVs  Well,  and  a  possible  reference  to  its  two  names  in  another  line: 

{Helena)    Will  you  be  mine,  now  you  are  doubly  wonT 

—V,  iii,  315. 
(King)        All  is  well  ended,  if  this  suit  be  won, 

That  you  express  content.        — V,  iii,  336-7  (Epilogue^ 

Boyle  has  pointed  out  some  inadvertences  and  inconsistencies  which  seem  to  him 
to  support  the  view  that  the  play  experienced  revision,  but  they  hardly  prove  anything 
more  than  carelessness. 

The  different  conjectures  as  to  when  and  why  the  supposed  former  title  of  this 
play  was  replaced  by  the  present  one  are  of  interest.  The  usual  view  is  the  one 
already  expressed  by  Collier,  namely,  that  the  comedy  once  existed  in  an  earlier 
form,  which  was  known  as  Love's  Labour^s  Won,  that  when  it  was  revised  into 
its  present  condition  it  received  for  that  reason  its  new  name.  The  frequent  refer- 
ences to  the  proverbial  title,  All's  Well  thai  Ends  Well,  occur  in  passages 
showing  the  later  style  (IV,  iv,  35;  V,  i,  25;  V,  iii,  333,  336),  and  are  usually 
looked  upon  as  intentional  references  to  the  new  name  that  was  already  selected. 
Malone,  in  stating  his  first  opinion,  conjectured  that  it  was  the  presence  of  the  pro- 
verb in  the  text  that  brought  about  the  change  of  name.*'  Staunton  thinks  that  the 
play  "  was  originally  intituled  '  Love's  Labour's  Won ;  or,  All's  Well  that  End's 
Well.' "  ^  Ulrici "  and  Kreyssig  "  suggest  that  the  change  was  made  in  order  to 
avoid  inappropriate  comparisons  between  this  play  and  Love's  Labour's  Lost. 

The  consciousness  of  having  a  large  majority  of  Shakespearean  scholars  with  them 
has  led  some  of  the  later  advocates  of  AlVs  Well  to  speak  with  unwarranted  confi- 
dence.    Brandes  goes  so  far  as  to  say: 

Since  it  is  scarcely  conceivable  that  a  play  of  Shakespeare's,  once  acted,  should  have  been 
entirely  lost,  the  only  question  is,  which  of  the  extant  comedies  originally  bore  that  title  [Love's 
Labour's  Wori].  But  in  reality  there  is  no  question  at  aU  :  the  play  is  All's  Well  that  Ends 
Well  —  not,  of  course,  as  we  now  possess  it,  in  a  form  and  style  belonging  to  a  quite  mature 
period  of  the  poet's  life,  but  as  it  stood  before  the  searching  revision,  of  which  it  shows  evideni 
traces."^ 

Li  spite  of  the  popularity  of  the  view  that  AlVs  Well  was  referred  to  by  Meres 
as  Lovers  Labour's  Won,  and  in  spite  of  the  arguments  in  its  favor,  there  are  grave 
objections.  AlVs  Well  has,  indeed,  certain  characteristics  that  seem  to  favor  its  claim, 
but  it  has  also  fundamental  deficiencies.  In  the  first  place,  no  close  connection 
between  this  comedy  and  its  supposed  brother-play  has  been  pointed  out.  The  marked 
correspondences  and  parallelisms  between  the  two  pieces  which  we  properly  expect  to 
find,  do  not  exist.  The  titles  Lovers  Labour^  Lost  and  Lovers  Labour's  Won  seem 
intended  to  designate  companion-plays.  AlVs  Well  is  not  a  good  companion-piece  to 
Lovers  Labour's  Lost,  and  it  seems  safe  to  say  that  it  never  was. 

«Ed.  Shakspeare  (London,  1790),  Vol.  I,  Part  I,  p.  319.  k  Vorlasungen  Cber  Sft.,  Sto  Anfl.  (Berlin,  1877),  Vol.  II, 

MEd.  Shakespeare  (London,  1881  [1857]),  Vol.  VI,  p.  125.       P- *>!• 

aSk.'t  Dramatic  Art,  Vol.  II,  p.  90.  "  William.  8h.,  one-ToI.  edition  (New  York,  1899),  p.  47. 

175 


20  Shakespeare's  "Love's  Laboub's  Won" 

In  the  second  place,  there  is  a  marked  contrast  in  tone,  in  mood,  between  these 
two  plays  that  are  supposed  to  have  been  thus  closely  associated ;  and  this  contrast  can 
hardly  have  been  preceded  in  an  earlier  version  of  All's  Well  by  any  genuine  and 
deep-seated  agreement.  The  central  situation  of  AlTs  Well,  the  desperate  venture  of 
the  indomitable  Helena,  would  be  intolerable  if  treated  in  the  tone  of  easy  banter  that 
distinguishes  Love's  Labour^s  Lost  A  Helena  who  was  not  fundamentally  serious 
would  be  nothing  —  yes,  worse  than  nothing. 

All's  Well  satisfies  some  of  the  conditions,  then,  that  must  be  met  by  a  play  that 
is  a  candidate  for  the  title  Love's  Labour's  Won;  what  may  fairly  be  termed  the  more 
fimdamental  conditions  it  does  not  satisfy. 

Kenny  uttered  some  plain  truth  on  this  subject  nearly  forty  years  ago,  when  he 
said: 

Coleridge  believed  that  "  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well "  was  originally  intended  as  the  cotm- 
terpart  of  "  Love's  Labour's  Lost."  But  we  can  discover  no  indication  of  any  such  intention,  and 
there  is,  we  think,  as  little  resemblance  between  the  two  works  as  between  any  other  two  come- 
dies of  their  author." 

Ingleby  tells  us: 

Loves']  Labours  Wonne  ....  has  not  been  satisfactorily  identified  with  any  of  the  plays 
in  our  collection.  For  one  thing,  we  do  not  think  it  likely  to  be  All's  well  that  ends  well,  as 
Farmer  conjectured,  which,  in  our  opinion,  offers  no  sufficient  resemblance  or  contrast  to  serve 
as  a  pendant  to  Loves  Labours  Lost.^ 

With  the  following  well-considered  words  of  von  Westenholz  we  close  this  division 
of  the  subject: 

Aber  selbst  wenn  die  Handlung  von  "  Ende  gut,  alles  gut "  mehr  als  die  eines  anderen 
Lustspiels  den  Titel  "  Gewonnene  Liebesmlih  "  rechtfertigen  sollte,  so  ist  doch  noch  ein  sehr 
wichtiger  Umstand  dabei  unberiicksichtigt  geblieben.  Jener  Titel  kam  dem  Stiicke,  das  ihn 
trug,  gewissermassen  nicht,  oder  doch  nicht  in  erster  Linie,  imi  seiner  selbst  willen  zu,  vielmehr 
erhielt  es  denselben  offenbar  in  gewoUter  GegentibersteUung  zu  der  bereits  vorhandenen  "  Ver- 
lorenen  Liebesmlih." 

Derselbe  ParalleUsmus  aber,  der  zwischen  den  beiden  Titeln  bestand,  musste  natm-gemass 
auch  zwischen  den  beiden  Stiicken  selbst  zutage  treten  und  zwar  in  Bezug  auf  die  Vorgftnge, 
auf  die  Personen  und  vor  allem  auf  den  Charakter  oder  anders  ausgedriickt,  auf  die  Stimmung, 
in  welche  die  Handlung  gewissermassen  getaucht  erscheint. 

Namenthch  in  letzterer  Hinsicht  aber  diirf  te  es  schwer  sein,  in  der  Kethe  der  Shakespeare- 
'schen  KomOdien  zwei  zu  finden,  welche  weniger  zu  einander  passen.  Hier,  bei  fast  vOUiger 
Abwesenheit  dramatischer  Handlung,  atif  halb  romantischem  Hintergrund  ein  anmuthiges 
TSndeln  mit  Worten,  ein  sprfihendes  Feuerwerk  des  Witzes,  dort  in  schwerer,  nicht  selten  derber 
Sprache  ein  emster,  mehr  schau-  als  lustspielmflssiger  Stoff,  dessen  herbe,  peinlich  benihrende 
Seiten  die  Kimst  Shakespeares  nm:  zu  mildem,  nicht  zu  unterdrilcken  vermochte."" 

M  Die  Life  and  Qenim  of  Sh.  (London,  1864) ,  p.  202.  66  Beilage  zwr  Alleoemeinen  Zeitung,  January  U,  1902, 

t^Shakspere  AUueion-Books,   Part   I    (Loudon,  1874),       P-  ™' 
General  Intro.,  p.  xxiv. 


176 


Albebt  H.  Tolman  21 


VI.       "MUCH   ADO   ABOUT   NOTHING" 

In  the  year  1860,  in  an  anonymous  book,  Mr.  A.  E.  Brae  argued  that  Much  Ado 
should  be  accepted  as  the  true  Love's  Labour^ s  Won.^^ 

The  date  of  1599  is  usually  given  to  Much  Ado,  because  it  seems  to  be  omitted 
from  Meres's  list  of  1598,  while  it  was  published  in  quarto  form  in  1600.  Since  the 
title-page  of  this  first  edition  tells  us  that  "  it  hath  been  sundrie]  times  publikely  acted 
by  the  right  honourable,  the  Lord  Chamber laine  his  semants," ''  Brae  argues  very 
plausibly  that  there  is  no  grave  diflSculty  about  the  date.  Fumess  points  out  also  that 
the  two  other  comedies  which  were  published  in  1600,  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream 
and  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  are  found  in  Meres." 

Brae  would  apply  the  title  Love's  Labour^s  Won  to  the  story  of  Benedict  and 
Beatrice.  The  name  Much  Ado  about  Nothing  plainly  applies  to  the  action  of  Claudio 
and  Hero.  The  reference  to  a  play  "called  Benedicte  and  Betteris"  in  an  item  in  the 
Lord-Treasurer  Stanhope's  Accounts  for  May  20,  1613,  suggests  "  that  the  present 
title  was  not  always  adhered  to.""*  Halliwell-Phillipps  says,  also,  "that  Charles  the 
First,  in  his  copy  of  the  Second  Folio,  preserved  in  Windsor  Castle,  has  added  the 
names  'Benedick  and  Beatrice,'  as  a  second  title."" 

Before  we  examine  Brae's  interpretation  of  the  titles  Love's  Labour's  Lost  and 
Love's  Labour's  Won,  let  us  see  what  authority  we  have  for  the  exact  form  in  which 
they  are  usually  given.  We  have  noted  that  the  two  designations  appear  in  Meres  as 
Loue  labors  lost  and  Loue  labours  wonne.  "  Loues  labors  lost "  is  the  form  on  the 
title-page  of  the  first  quarto  of  the  play.  The  head-line  of  each  right-hand  page 
throughout  the  book  is  Loues  Labor's  lost.  In  the  quarto  the  apostrophe  frequently 
marks  the  abbreviation  's  for  is,  but  seems  not  to  be  used  before  an  -s  that  denotes  a 
possessive  case,  a  plural  of  a  noun,  or  the  third  singular  indicative  of  a  verb.  It  seems 
clear,  therefore,  as  Furnivall  points  out,'''  that  Labor's  is  meant  as  a  contraction  for 
Labor  is. 

The  First  Folio  has  Loues  Labour  lost  in  the  preliminary  "  Catalogue,"  or  table 
of  contents,  and  Loues  Labour's  lost  as  the  heading  for  each  page  of  the  text.  The 
proper  form  of  the  title  in  modern  spelling  would  therefore  seem  to  be  Love's 
Labo{u)r's  Lost.  The  corresponding  title  would  naturally  be  Love's  Labo{u)r's 
Won. 

Hertzberg  feels,  however,  that  in  the  case  of  Love's  Labour's  Won,  the  Labour's 
must  be  interpreted  as  an  abbreviation  for  Labour  has,  since  one  does  not  win  labour, 
though  he  may  lose  labour.'^     Probably  this  difficulty  will  not  seem  important  to  one 

"  Collier,  Coleridge,  and  Shakespeare,  by  the  author  of  «i  The  quotation  is  from  Fubness,  Mitch  Ado,  p.  xxii. 
Literary  Cookery  (London,  1860),  chap.  Ti,  pp.  131-48.    The  He  cites  "  Halliwell,  Outlines,  etc.,  p.  262,"  as  his  author- 
present  writer  used  the  copy  in  the  Boston  Public  Library,  ity.    The  writer  of  this  article  has  not  found  the  statement 
The  extracts  in  FcENEsa'a  Variorum  ed.  of  Much  Ado  in  his  copy  of  the  10th  ed.  of  the  Outlines. 
(Phila.,  1899),  pp.  367-71,  are  ample,  62  Geiggs,  Facsimile  of  the  First  Quarto  of  Love's  La- 

M  See  FcENEas'a  Variorum  Much  Ado,  p.  xiit  tour's  Lost,  n.  to  p.  iii  of  Forewords. 


tSFuENESs's  Much  Ado,  p.  ziv. 


'3S7i.'«  dramatische  Werke,  nach  der  Uebersetzung  ron 
,  .  ,  ,  Schlegel    und  .  ,  .  .  Tieck  .  .  .  .  2te    Aufl.    (Berlin, 
t»Ibid,  pp.  zzi,  368,  1897),  VoL  XI,Einleituiig  zn  Ende  gut,  Alles  gut,  p.  315,  note. 

177 


22  Shakespeabe's  "Love's  Labour's  Won" 

whose  native  tongue  is  English.  It  seems  easy  to  interpret  labour  as  put  by  metonymy 
for  the  object  of  the  labour,  the  desired  result.  Then  Love's  Labour's  Won  would 
mean  "the  desired  result  of  the  labor  is  won,  has  been  obtained."  This  explanation 
would  also  apply  to  the  companion  title,  if  desired.  Hertzberg  could  find  no  example 
in  Shakespeare  of  the  use  of  's  as  an  abbreviation  for  has;  but  a  difficult  expression 
in  The  Tempest  is  thought  by  many  to  be  an  example  of  this  contraction:  "For 
he's  a  spirit  of  persuasion"  (II,  i,  235).  It  does  not  seem  probable,  however,  that  this 
abbreviation  can  be  found  in  an  early  play,  least  of  all  in  the  title.  Frequent  and  bold 
abbreviations  of  common  words  and  combinations,  apparently  taken  from  colloquial 
usage,  are  a  distinct  mark  of  Shakespeare's  latest  style. 

But  we  are  not  yet  through  with  the  labor  —  whether  of  love  or  aversion  —  which 
falls  to  those  who  would  fully  consider  the  question  of  the  significance  of  these  trouble- 
some titles.     Brae  offers  an  interpretation  of  his  own: 

It  seems  to  have  escaped  notice  on  all  hands  that  the  mythological  sense  of  Love's  Labour 
would  be  much  more  consonant  with  the  age  in  which  Shakespeare  wrote,  than  the  sentimental 
sense.  That  is,  that  Love's  Labours  va.  the  dramatic  writing  of  that  time,  would  be  much  more 
likely  to  be  imderstood  as  the  gests  or  exploits  of  the  deity  Love,  in  the  same  sense  as  the 
fabled  Labours  of  Hercules, 

That  such  is  really  the  intention  of  the  title  in  the  case  of  Lcrve's  Labour's  Lost,  must 
become  apparent  to  any  one  who  will  attentively  read  the  play  with  that  previous  notion.  He 
will  then  perceive  abimdant  evidence,  all  through,  that  it  is  the  mythical  exploits  of  the  Wind 
god  that  are  alluded  to: — in  overcoming  the  apparently  insurmountable  difBculties  opposed  to 
him  ;  in  setting  at  nought  the  vows  of  the  king  and  his  courtiers ;  and  in  bringing  to  the  feet  of 
the  princess  and  her  ladies  the  very  men  who  had  forsworn  all  women.  After  scattering  human 
resolves  to  the  winds,  and  reducing  to  subjection  the  hearts  that  had  presumed  to  set  him  at 
defiance.  Love  at  length  succumbs  to  a  still  more  absolute  deity  than  himself.  Death  steps 
in  to  frustrate  his  designs,  at  the  very  instant  of  fruition,  and  so  his  labour  becomes  Labour 
Lost. 

The  mythological  allusions  are  unmistakeable.  Biron  exclaims,  when  the  King  enters 
love-stricken,  "  Proceed,  sweet  Cupid :  thou  hast  thumped  him  with  thy  bird-bolt  under  the  left 
pap  "  [IV,  iii,  22-4].  In  another  place,  "  Love  "  is  "  a  Hercules,  still  climbing  trees  in  the  Hes- 
perides "  [IV,  iii,  340,  341],  a  direct  reference  to  the  mythological  labours  of  Hercules!  And 
when  the  whole  "  mess  of  fools  "  yield  themselves,  rescue  or  no  rescue,  the  King  personifies 
Love  and  invokes  him  as  his  patron, — "Saint  Cupid,  then!  and,  soldiers,  to  the  field!"  [IV, 
in,  366]. 

Now,  according  to  the  interpretation  the  title  of  this  play  has  hitherto  received  at  the 
hands  of  Shakespeare's  editors,  the  mythological  sense  is  ignored.  The  love's  labour  which, 
according  to  them,  is  lost,  is  not  Love's  labour,  but  that  of  the  King  and  his  fellows,  "  in  their 
endeavours,"  as  Mr.  Knight  explains, "  to  ingratiate  themselves  vrith  their  mistresses."  But 
surely  such  an  explanation  excludes  the  most  prominent  labour  of  all,  the  conquest  of  the  men 
themselves!  They,  so  far  from  being  partakers  in  the  labour,  are  unwilling  victims, —  each 
ashamed  to  acknowledge  his  defeat  to  his  fellows.  This  was  the  triumph,  this  was  the  exploit, — 
and,  being  attributable  to  Love  alone,  it  is  of  itself  almost  sufficient  to  establish  the  true  mean- 
ing of  the  title. 

Mr.  Brae  now  seeks  to  win  from  his  interpretation  of  this  title  an  argument  for 
Ms  contention  that  Much  Ado  is  the  desired  Love's  Labour's  Won: 

178 


Albert  H.  Tolman  23 


In  mythological  language,  a  labour  was  an  achievement  of  great  and  supernatural  diffi- 
culty, to  be  undertaken  only  by  the  Gods  and  Heroes ;  from  the  analogy,  then,  of  the  assumed 
meaning  of  that  word  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  something  of  the  same  character  must  naturally 
be  looked  for  in  whatever  play  may  have  borne  the  companion  title  of  Love's  Labour's  Won ; 
and  it  is  now  to  be  shown  that  in  no  other  available  play  is  there  so  much  of  that  character  as  in 
Much  Ado  About  Nothing. 

In  it,  the  same  difficulty  is  encoimtered  in  bringing  together  sworn  enemies  to  Love,  who 
profess  to  set  him  at  defiance;  the  same  forced  subjection  of  unwilling  victims  who  are  confi- 
dently boasting  of  their  freedom. 

So  completely  is  this  recognized  as  a  labour,  that  Don  Pedro,  the  match  maker,  who  must 
meddle  with  everybody's  love  affairs,  and  fancy  them  his  own  doing,  exclaims: — "  I  will  .... 
undertake  one  of  Hercules'  labours ;  which  is,  to  bring  Signior  Benedick  and  the  Lady  Beatrice 
into  a  mountain  of  affection  the  one  with  the  other"  [II,  i,  379-83].  Here,  then,  in  Love's 
Labour's  Won  ( ? ),  is  the  same  literal  reference  to  the  Labours  of  Hercules  as  that  before  noted 
in  Love's  Labour's  Lost ! 

But  it  is  in  the  numerous  allusions  to  the  deity  Love,  and  to  his  exploits,  that  the  most 
conclusive  similitude  exists  ;  — "  Nay,  if  Cupid  have  not  spent  all  his  quiver  in  Venice,  thou  wilt 
quake  for  this  shortly"  [I,  i,  273,  274].  Beatrice,  in  the  very  opening,  says  of  Benedick: — "He 
set  up  his  bUls  here  in  Messina,  and  challenged  Cupid  at  the  flight ;  and  my  uncle's  fool,  read- 
ing the  challenge,  subscribed  for  Cupid,  and  challenged  him  at  the  bird-bolt "  [I,  i,  39-42]. 
Cupid's  bird-bolt!  see  the  parallel  phrase  quoted  above.  Then,  again,  where  Don  Pedro  is 
pluming  himself  upon  his  clever  stratagem  to  lime  Benedick,  he  exclaims: — "If  we  can  do  this, 
Cupid  is  no  longer  an  archer :  his  glory  shall  be  ours,  for  we  are  the  only  love-gods  "  [II,  i,  400-402]. 

But,  as  if  in  contrast  to  this  foolish  assumption.  Hero,  who  plays  off  the  same  trick  upon 
Beatrice,  takes  no  part  of  the  credit  to  herself:  —  she  is  one  of  the  initiated;  she  has  herself  felt 
the  power  of  the  bird-bolt  and  knows  well  who  sent  it :  — "  Of  this  matter  is  little  Cupid's  crafty 
arrow  made,  that  only  woimds  by  hearsay"  [III,  i,  21-3].  And  again: — "Some  Cupid  kills 
with  arrows,  some  with  traps  "  [III,  i,  106]. 

One  more  of  these  allusions  need  only  be  added,  and  that  principally  for  the  sake  of 
explaining  an  expression  which  has  been  much  misunderstood.  In  the  opening  [the  second] 
Scene  of  the  third  Act,  Don  Pedro  says  of  Benedick  :  — "  He  hath  twice  or  thrice  cut  Cupid's 
bow-string,  and  the  little  hangman  dare  not  shoot  at  him"  [III,  ii,  10-12],  Here  "hangman" 
,  .  .  .  plainly  means  slaughterer !  a  very  appropriate  epithet  for  Cupid 

Thus  the  epithet, "  little  hangman  "  designating,  as  it  does  when  properly  explained.  Love 
as  the  slaughterer  of  hearts,  directly  corroborates  the  general  hypothesis,  that  "  Love's  Labour," 
in  the  titles  of  these  two  plays,  has  mythological  reference  to  the  exploits  of  the  god." 

It  will  perhaps  help  us  in  estimating  the  plausibility  of  Brae's  contention  if  we 
note  that  the  name  Cupid  occurs  ten  times  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  nine  times  in 
Much  Ado,  eight  times  in  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  and  not  more  than  twice  in 
any  other  one  of  the  plays  printed  as  comedies  in  the  First  Folio.  None  of  the  refer- 
ences in  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream  seem  significant.  Three  of  them  concern 
Cupid's  lost  labor  in  trying  to  wound  the  "  fair  vestal  throned  by  the  west "  (II,  i, 
157-65).  In  another,  "  Dian's  bud "  breaks  the  spell  that  had  been  wrought  by 
"  Cupid's  flower  "  (IV,  i,  78-79).  The  remaining  passages  in  which  the  name  of  the 
love-god  appears  do  not  suggest  that  A  Midsummer -Night's  Dream  is  the  much  sought 
for  Love's  Labour's  Won  (I,  i,  169,  235;  III,  ii,  103,  440), 


MFuENESs's  Variorum  ed.  of  Much  Ado  (Philadelphia,  1899),  pp.  369-71. 

179 


24 


Shakespeabe's  "Love's  Laboub's  Won" 


Of  the  ten  passages  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost  which  mention  the  name  of  Cupid, 
three  seem  not  to  be  significant  (I,  ii,  67;  II,  i,  254;  IV,  iii,  58).  The  others  follow, 
BO  far  as  they  have  not  been  already  cited: 

{Armado)  ....  Cupid's  butt-shaft  is  too  hard  for  Hercules'  club;  and  therefore  too  much 
odds  for  a  Spaniard's  rapier  "  [I,  ii,  181-3). 

Biron.    And  I,  forsooth,  in  love!    I,  that  have  been  love's  whip ; 
A  very  beadle  to  a  humorous  sigh  ; 
A  critic,  nay,  a  night-watch  constable ; 
A  domineering  pedant  o'er  the  boy ; 
Than  whom  no  mortal  so  magnificent ! 
This  whimpled,  whining,  purblind,  wayward  boy ; 
This  senior- junior,  giant-dwarf,  Dan  Cupid ; 
Kegent  of  love-rhymes,  lord  of  folded  arms, 
The  anointed  sovereign  of  sighs  and  groans, 
Liege  of  all  loiterers  and  malcontents, 
Dread  prince  of  plackets,  king  of  codpieces, 
Sole  imperator  and  great  general 
Of  trotting  'paritors  : — O  my  little  heart!  — 
And  I  to  be  a  corporal  of  his  field, 
And  wear  his  colours  Uke  a  tumbler's  hoop  I 
What,  I !  I  love  !  I  sue  !  I  seek  a  wife  I 

And  I  to  sigh  for  her !  to  watch  for  her  1 
To  pray  for  her  1    Go  to ;  it  is  a  plague 
That  Cupid  will  impose  for  my  neglect 
Of  his  almighty  dreadful  httle  might. 

—  Ill,  i,  175-191,  202-5. 
Madam,  came  nothing  else  along  with  that? 
Nothing  but  this  !  yes,  as  much  love  in  rhyme 
As  would  be  cramm'd  up  in  a  sheet  of  paper, 
Writ  o'  both  sides  the  leaf,  margent  and  all. 
That  he  was  fain  to  seal  on  Cupid's  name. 

—V,  ii,  5-9. 
Prepare,  madam,  prepare ! 
Arm,  wenches,  arm  1  encoimters  mounted  are 
Against  your  peace :  Love  doth  approach  disguised, 
Armed  in  arguments  ;  you'll  be  siurprised : 
Muster  your  wits  ;  stand  in  yomr  own  defence ; 
Or  hide  your  heads  like  cowards,  and  fly  hence. 
Saint  Denis  to  Saint  Cupid  i     What  are  they 
That  charge  their  breath  against  us?  say,  scout,  say. 

—V,ii,  81-88, 

One  of  the  mentions  of  Cupid  in  Much  J.do  is  non-significant  (I,  i,  186);  but  one 
of  those  already  cited  has  especial  force  if  we  note  the  entire  context.  This  context 
contains,  also,  another  mention  of  the  love-god  by  name: 

Don  Pedro.    I  shall  see  thee,  ere  I  die,  look  pale  with  love. 

Benedick.    With  anger,  with  sickness,  or  with  himger,  my  lord,  not  with  love:  prove  that 

180 


Rosaline. 
Princess. 


Boyet. 


Princess. 


Albert  H.  Tolman  25 


ever  I  lose  more  blood  with  love  than  I  will  get  again  with  drinking,  pick  out  mine  eyes  with  a 

baUad-maker's  pen  and  hang  me  up  at  the  door  of  a  brothel-house  for  the  sign  of  blind  Cupid. 

Don  Pedro.    Well,  if  ever  thou  dost  fall  from  this  faith,  thou  wilt  prove  a  notable  argument. 

Don  Pedro.  Nay,  if  Cupid  have  not  spent  all  his  qtdver  in  Venice,  thou  wilt  quake  for  this 
shortly. 

Benedick.    I  look  for  an  earthquake,  too,  then.    [I,  i,  249-58, 273-5.] 

It  seems  to  the  writer  that  Brae  has  made  out  a  good  case  for  his  explanation  of 
the  words  Love's  Labour's  Lost.  The  interpretation  which  he  gives  is  natural  and 
unforced.     Still,  the  same  may  be  said  for  the  usual  understanding  of  the  title. 

Brae  makes  much  of  the  similarity  of  Benedick  and  Beatrice  in  Much  Ado  to 
Biron  and  Kosaline  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost: 

So  striking  is  the  resemblance  of  design  and  treatment  in  both  pairs,  that  without  any  view 
to  the  present  question,  they  have  long  been  spoken  of  as  first  sketch  and  finished  portrait.  But 
by  the  present  hypothesis,  which  assumes  that  these  two  plays  were  designed  for  companion 
PICTUBES,  under  titles  differing  only  in  denouement,  the  judgement  is  at  once  relieved  from  the 
necessity  of  regarding  them  as  rep)etitions,¥Dr  of  supposing  that  the  inexhaustible  Shakespeare 
would  recur  to  his  old  materials  for  re-working  in  another  form.*" 

The  last  sentence  is  unfortunate  in  view  of  the  fact  that  Shakespeare  was  con- 
stantly repeating  his  characters  and  situations  in  other  forms.  The  amount  of  dra- 
matic material  in  The  Winter''s  Tale  that  had  been  used  in  previous  plays  is  really 
astonishing  to  one  who  examines  the  comedy  carefully  with  this  in  mind.  Did 
Shakespeare  abandon  the  device  of  having  a  heroine  disguise  herself  as  a  young  man, 
after  employing  it  once  ? 

But  there  is  also  apparent  design  [says  Brae]  in  the  contrasts,  as  well  as  in  the  similitudes 
presented  by  these  two  plays.  In  one  the  prevailing  featiu-e  is  rhyme,  in  the  other  prose;  in  one 
the  phraseology  is  obscvire  and  euphuistic,  in  the  other  remarkably  plain  and  colloquial." 

"  In  short,"  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Sludge,  the  Medium,  "  a  hit  proves  much,  a  miss 
proves  more."     Really,  these  last  points  count  heavily  against  Brae's  hypothesis. 

Parallel  passages  are  cited  "  for  the  purpose  of  showing  that  the  two  plays  were 
probably  written  about  the  same  time,"  but  these  are  not  numerous  enough  to  have 
much  force. 

The  ingenuity  and  plausibility  of  Brae's  argument  caused  Fleay  to  abandon  the 
view  of  Coleridge,  which,  as  already  noted,  he  had  supported  in  1874  and  1876.  In 
1877,  he  declared  that  Brae  had  shown  that  Much  Ado  "is  almost  certainly  the 
same  as  Lovers  Labour^s  Won.^''  In  1886,  he  was  less  positive.  In  1891,  he 
thought  Much  Ado  "probably  a  rewritten  version  of  Love's  Labour's  Won,""  The 
additional  arguments  by  which  Fleay  attempted  in  1886  to  strengthen  Brae's  view 
are  ingenious  but  not  valuable.  However,  the  fine  sarcasm  with  which  Fumess  refutes 
one  of  these  is  so  delicious  that  it  cannot  be  said  to  have  lived  in  vain.'' 

65  Fdbnesb's  JfttcA  4do,  p.  368.  SAafcespeare  (London,  1886),  pp.  2M,  205.    A  Biographical 

Kjbid.  Chronicle  of  the  English  Drama,  1559-16^,  2  Vols.  (London, 

'Untroduction  to  Shakespearian  Study  (London  and  1891) ,  Vol.  II,  p.  182. 
Glasgow,1877),  pp  23,  25.    The  Life  and  Work  of  William  es  Variorum  ed.  of  Much  Ado,  pp.  xviii,  xix. 

181 


26  Shakespeare's  "Love's  Labour's  Won" 

vii.     "  the  taming  of  the  shrew" 
The  view  that  is  now  to  engage  our  attention  was  put  forward  by  Craik  in  1857. 
Omitting  most  of  what  he  says  concerning  a  manuscript  emendation  in  the  Collier 
folio,  his  argument  runs  as  follows: 

May  not  the  true  Love's  Labour's  Won  be  what  we  now  call  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  ? 
That  Play  is  founded  upon  an  older  one  called  The  Taming  of  a  Shrew;  it  is  therefore  in  the 
highest  degree  improbable  that  it  was  originally  produced  under  its  present  name.  The 
desig^iation  by  which  it  is  now  known,  in  all  likelihood,  was  only  given  to  it  after  its  predecessor 
had  been  driven  from  the  stage,  and  had  come  to  be  generally  forgotten.  Have  we  not  that 
which  it  previously  bore  indicated  in  one  of  the  restorations  of  Mr.  Collier's  MS.  annotator, 
who  directs  vs,  in  the  last  Une  but  one  of  the  Second  Act,  instead  of  "  in  this  case  of  wooing  " 
to  read  "  in  this  case  of  winning  "  . . . .  The  Play  is,  besides,  full  of  other  repetitions  of  the  same 
key-note.  Thus,  in  the  second  Scene  of  Act  I,  when  Hortensio  informs  Gremio  that  he  had 
promised  Petrucio,  if  he  would  become  suitor  to  Katharine,  that  they  "  would  be  contributors. 
And  bear  his  charge  of  wooing,  whatsoe'er,"  Gremio  answers,  "  And  so  we  will,  provided  that  he 
win  her  "  [I,  ii,  215-17].  In  the  fifth  Scene  of  Act  IV,  when  the  resolute  Veronese  has  brought 
the  shrew  to  a  complete  submission,  Hortensio's  congratulation  is,  "Petrucio,  go  thy  ways;  the 
field  is  won"  [IV,  v,  23].  So  in  the  concluding  scene  the  lady's  father  exclaims,  "  Now,  fair  befall 
thee,  good  Petrucio  1  The  wager  thou  hast  won;"  to  which  the  latter  replies,  "Nay,  I  will  win 
my  wager  better  yet"  [V,  ii.  Ill,  112,  116].  And  his  last  words  in  passing  from  the  stage, 
as  if  in  pointed  allusion  to  our  supposed  title  of  the  piece,  are  — 

"  'Twas  I  won  the  wager,  though  you  [Lucentio]  hit  the  white; 
And,  being  a  winner,  God  give  you  good  night !"  [V,  ii,  186, 187.] 

The  title  of  Love's  Labour's  Won,  it  may  be  added,  might  also  comprehend  the  underplot 
of  Lucentio  and  Bianca,  and  even  that  of  Hortensio  and  the  Widow,  though  in  the  case  of  the 
latter  it  might  rather  be  supposed  to  be  the  lady  who  should  be  deemed  the  winning  party."  " 

Hertzberg  tells  us  that  Emil  Palleske  and  E.  W.  Sievers  preceded  himself  in 
Germany  in  identifying  Love's  Labour's  Won  with  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew.'"'  In 
the  case  of  Palleske  no  reference  is  given,  and  it  has  been  impossible  to  find  at 
Harvard  University  or  the  Boston  Public  Library  the  book  or  article  concerned.  The 
argument  of  Sievers  will  be  given  later.  Hertzberg  points  out  in  favor  of  the  theory 
before  us  that  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  is  not  in  Meres's  list  by  its  own  name, 
although  it  is  among  the  most  youthful  productions  of  Shakespeare ;  that  Petruchio 
has  an  abundance  of  labor  in  winning  the  desired  result ;  and  that,  though  the  title 
Love's  Labour's  Won  does  not  apply  perfectly  and  for  all  the  suitors,  the  companion 
title  Love's  Labour^s  Lost  is  by  no  means  an  entirely  happy  description  of  the  action 
of  that  comedy." 

Boas  inclines  to  the  view  of  Hertzberg,  both  in  his  argument  against  All's  Well 
and  in  that  favoring  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  "  while  admitting  that  the  question 
has  not  been  quite  conclusively  settled."" 

69GEOBOB    L.   Ckaik,     The  English  of  Shakespeare  '•  Einleitnng  zn  2fnde  »«(,  ^lte»  put,  as  already  cited, 

{London,  1857),  pp.  8, 9,  note.    The  passage  is  omitted  from  p.  355. 
the  American  edition.  nshaktpere  and  Hit   Predecessors  (New  York,  1896), 

TiSh.'a  Dramatische  Werke,  nach  der  TJebersetznng  von  p.  345,  note. 

Schlegel  und Tieck 2te  Aufl.  (Berlin,  1897, 

[1871]),  Vol.  XI,  Einleitang  ca  Bnde  gut,  Alles  gut,  p.  355. 

182 


Albebt  H.  Tolman  27 


The  question  of  the  date  of  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  need  not  detain  us  long, 
since  Shakespearean  scholars  are  pretty  well  agreed  that  the  play  was  in  existence 
when  Meres's  list  was  written.  It  is  generally  accepted  also  that  only  the  shrew  story 
itself  in  this  comedy  is  by  Shakespeare,  and  that  the  under-plot  is  not  his." 

The  supposed  allusions  in  the  play  and  to  the  play  by  means  of  which  attempts 
have  been  made  to  determine  the  date  of  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  are  entirely 
inconclusive."  Remembering  the  "  inveterate  skepticism  "  of  Delius  concerning  most 
of  the  allusions  used  to  establish  the  dates  of  plays,"  and  the  exposure  which  Furness 
has  recently  made  of  their  untruetworthiness  in  the  case  of  Twelfth  Night,^'  let  us  look 
for  better  evidence. 

The  fact  that  the  comedy  called  The  Taming  of  a  Shrew  was  published  in  1594 
does  not  help  very  directly  in  determining  the  date  of  our  play.  The  Shrew  and  A 
Shrew  (as  it  will  be  convenient  to  call  the  two  plays)  are  closely  related.  The  taming 
story  is  the  same  in  both,  and  there  are  also  remarkable  agreements  in  language,  extend- 
ing even  to  insignificant  phrases.  The  under-plots  of  the  two  comedies  are  decidedly 
different.  The  usual  view  is  that  Shakespeare  took  not  only  his  main  plot  from  A 
Shrew,  but  also  the  language,  where  that  is  common  to  the  two  plays.  But  this  view 
has  not  been  proved. 

The  testimony  of  the  versification  would  place  Shakespeare's  part  of  The  Shrew 
very  early  in  his  career  as  a  writer,  Konig"  finds  the  play  to  have  a  smaller 
percentage  of  run-on  lines  {enjambements)  than  any  other.  Moreover,  in  those  parts 
of  the  play  which  are  accepted  as  Shakespeare's,  the  run-on  lines  are  less  numerous 
than  elsewhere.  Of  all  the  so-called  metrical  tests,  this  one  of  the  frequency  of  run-on 
lines,  "  the  stopt-line  test,"  seems  to  be  the  most  important.  This  importance  is  due 
both  to  its  organic  character,  its  close  relation  to  the  changing  thought  and  style  of 
the  poet,  and  also  to  the  large  number  of  lines  concerned  in  determining  the  percentage 
for  each  play. 

The  small  amount  of  rhyme  in  Shakespeare's  part  of  The  Shrew  "  speaks  against 
giving  to  the  play  so  early  a  date  as  "the  stopt-line  test"  would  indicate;  but  the 
metrical  evidence  as  a  whole  is  plainly  in  favor  of  a  date  before  1598.  The  links  which 
Fumivall  points  out  between  The  Shrew  and  the  other  dramas,  concern  plays  that  are 
in  Meres's  list,  especially  The  Comedy  of  Errors.^''  The  accepted  opinion  that  The 
Shrew  was  in  existence  when  Meres's  book  was  written  seems  therefore  to  be  well 
founded. 

A  struggle  for  supremacy  between  a  wife  and  husband  was  a  favorite  theme  in 
mediaeval  story.    The  Wife  of  Bath  and  the  Merchant's  Wife,  in  Chaucer,  are  examples 

1^  Collier  and  White  stated  in  general  terms  the  view  ''  Preface  to  the  Leoipold  Shakspere,  London, 

now  generaUy  accepted  as  to  what  portions  of  the  play  were  „  preface  to  Variomm  ed.  of  Twelfth  Night  (Philadel- 

written  by  Shakespeare.     The  details  hare  been  discussed  njiia   19011  dd  vii-xi 
by  Fleay,  Fnmivall,  and  the    present    writer.     See  the 

writer's  article,  "Shakespeare's  Part  in  'The Taming  of  "^e»"  ^«"  «»  Shaksperee  Dramen  (Strassburg,  1888), 

the  Shrew,'  "  PublicatUms  of  the  ModemLang.  Asaociatum,  P-  ^^• 
Vol.  V  (1890),  pp,  252-77.  nPubs.  Modem  Lane.  A$»ac.,Yol.  V,  pp.  269, 270. 

1*  See  the  article  jost  named,  pp,  211-13,  T  Intro,  to  Leopold  Shakspeare,  p.  zUt. 

183 


28  Shakespeabe's  "Love's  Labour's  Won" 

of  assertive  shrews.     The  half-morality  Tom  Tyler  and  His  Wife,""  which  gives  an 
amusing  account  of  an  attempt  to  tame  a  shrew,  was  probably  printed  in  1578." 

The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  is  usually  said  to  have  appeared  in  print  for  the  first 
time  in  the  folio  of  1623.  It  was  also  printed  in  quarto  form  in  1631.  Some  years 
ago  Mr.  Quaritch,  the  London  bookseller,  offered  for  sale  a  quarto  copy  of  this  play 
which  did  not  contain  the  leaf  bearing  the  date,  but  which  he  believed  to  have  been 
printed  before  the  First  Folio.*"  The  Taming  of  a  Shrew  was  printed  in  1594,  1596, 
and  1607.  Since  the  taming  story  is  substantially  the  same  in  both  plays,  all  of  these 
impressions  may  be  reckoned  together  as  showing  the  popularity  of  this  story.  This 
play  was  the  only  comedy  of  Shakespeare  to  call  out  a  dramatic  retort  after  his  death; 
and  the  existence  of  this  companion  piece,  Fletcher's  The  Woman's  Prize,  or,  The 
Tamer  Tamed,  of  itself  makes  it  certain  that  our  play  had  been  a  favorite.  In  1638 
Shakespeare's  comedy  was  performed  at  court  on  the  night  of  November  26,  and 
Fletcher's  on  November  28.''  Fletcher's  piece  seems  to  have  been  generally  called  by 
its  second  name.  The  Tamer  Tamed,  undoubtedly,  as  Weber  observes,  in  order  "to 
approximate  the  title  to  that  of  Shakespeare's  play."  "  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  was 
revived  at  the  Kestoration.  The  Dutch  version  of  1654  is  "  the  earliest  extant  transla- 
tion of  any  Shakespearean  play."  **  In  Germany  this  comedy  has  been  many  times 
refashioned.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  form  of  the  play  spoken  of  in  1658  as 
"  Die  wunderbare  Heurath  Petruvio,  mit  der  bOsen  Catharine,"  ^  an  adaptation  of 
Shakespeare's  play  called  "  Kunst  fiber  alle  Ktlnste,  ein  bOs  Weib  gut  zu  machen," 
appeared  in  1672,  and  is  "  the  earliest  impression  of  a  German  version  of  an  entire 
Shakespearian  piece.""  Later  adaptations  are:  "Christian  Weise's  DiebOse  Katha- 
rina,  1705;  Schink's  Die  besahmte  Wiederbellerin,  1781,  and  Holbein's  Liebe  kann 
Alles,  1822;  finally  the  now  current  version  by  Deinhardstein."  " 

In  Germany  at  the  present  day  this  comedy  enjoys  a  surpassing  popularity.  From 
the  annual  statistics  given  in  the  Jahrbilcher  of  the  German  Shakespeare  Society  we 
learn  that,  during  the  four  years  1885-88,  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  was  played  297 
times  in  the  usual  version,  and  153  times  in  the  Holbein  adaptation,  Liebe  kann  Alles, 
a  total  of  450  times.  No  other  play  of  Shakespeare  was  so  popular.  Othello  and 
Hamlet  come  next  with  414  and  847  performances  in  the  same  period.  In  1895, 
Othello  was  presented  114  times  and  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  104  times,  out  of  a 
total  of  774  Shakespearean  performances.  In  the  same  year  Liebe  kann  Alles  was 
acted  "  about  30  times."  In  1900,  out  of  a  total  of  713  performances  for  all  the  plays 
of  Shakespeare,  Othello  was  acted  96  times ;  Hamlet  and  Romeo  and  Juliet,  each  83 

80 Beprinted  by  F.  E.  Schellinq  from  the  2d  od.,  1661,  Bolte,    Jahrbuch,  der    deuUchen    Sh-Oesellsckitft,  Vol. 

in  the  Publicatioru  of  the  Modem  Lang.  Assoc.,  Vol.  XV,  XXVI,  pp.  78,  79. 
pp.  253-89.  85  Introduction  to  KOhlke's  edition  of  Kuntt  Ober  alle 

81 SCBEMJNO,  Intro.,  pp.  254-7.  KUnste,  etc.  (Berlin,  1864),  p.  ix. 

KlBoTifcndeSAofcespeore,  VoLn  (NewYork,  1888),  p.  4.  »«Cohn,  Shakespeare  in  Oermany  (London,  1865),  p. 

83  The  Works  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  ed.  by  A.  DrcE 
(Boston,  1854),  Vol.  II,  p.  178.  87Hbepobd,  The  Evertleji  8h,,  Vol,  U  (tendon,  1899), 


M"De  dolle  Bmyloft"  is  the  title.   See  article  by  J. 

184 


pp.  U,  12. 


Albebt  H.  Tolman  29 


times;  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  78  times.  No  account  was  kept  of  the  presen- 
tation of  Liebe  kann  Alles. 

In  the  United  States  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  has  always  enjoyed  a  good  degree 
of  public  favor,  but  not  the  abounding  measure  bestowed  upon  it  in  Germany. 

Various  comedies  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth  and  James  besides  those  already  men- 
tioned deal  with  the  general  topic  of  shrewish  and  unmanageable  wives;  and  a  number 
of  more  modern  plays  have  either  been  adapted  from  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  or 
suggested  by  it.'' 

The  accepted  early  date  of  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  and  its  extraordinary  and 
continuous  popularity,  force  us  to  ask  the  question:  How  could  such  a  play  be 
omitted  from  Meres's  list?  The  only  purpose  of  the  list  was  to  establish  the  claim 
that  Shakespeare  was  "  most  excellent  in  both  kinds  [tragedy  and  comedy]  for  the 
stage."  How  could  Meres  omit  this  play  with  its  mastery  of  comic  technique? — this 
play  which  goes  off  with  such  captivating  vigor  on  the  stage,  which  has  such  an  abund- 
ance of  broad  and  even  farcical  comedy  for  the  crowd,  and  also  suggestions  of  deeper 
truth  for  the  thoughtful?  "No  other  play  of  Shakespeare,"  says  Herford,  "has  come 
home  like  the  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  to  the  business  and  bosoms  of  average  men  and 
husbands." '"    Must  we  believe  that  this  comedy  was  omitted  by  Meres  ? 

Herford  thinks  that  Meres's  failure  to  include  The  Shrew  is  indecisive  as  to  the 
date  "in  the  case  of  a  play  so  largely  not  Shakespeare's." ""  Von  Westenholz  takes 
the  same  line  of  explanation,  when  he  says: 

Die  Zahl  der  Shakespeare'schen  Lustspiele  aber  dGrfte  im  Jahre  1598  das  halbe  Dutzend 
thatsflchlich  kaum  erreicht,  jedenf alls  nicht  llberschritten  haben,  zumal  wenn  Meres  die  "  Zflh- 
mung  der  Widerspenstigen,"  die  wir  ja  allerdings  als  ein  Jugendprodukt  anzuseheu  pflegen, 
wegen  der  allzu  engen  Anlehnung  an  die  Vorlage  oder  aus  anderen  Grtoden  von  seiner  Liste 
ausschhessen  wollte." 

It  is  impossible  to  argue  against  unknown  "  andere  Grtlnde  " ;  and  it  is  hard  to  see 
why  The  Shrew  should  be  omitted  by  Meres.  This  is  especially  true  as  against  the 
view  of  von  Westenholz,  who  claims  that  Meres  really  mentions  only  five  comedies  in 
a  list  which  calls  for  and  appears  to  contain  the  titles  of  six. 

Are  we  to  believe  that  the  agreements  between  A  Shrew  and  The  Shrew  are  due 
to  the  fact  that  Shakespeare  borrows  freely  from  the  already  existing  play,  A  Shrew  f 
If  so,  it  is  just  the  most  successful  and  the  most  intensely  Shakespearean  parts  of 
The  Shrew  which  are  taken  from  the  other  play ;  and  this  borrowing  marks  not  only 
the  plot  but  also  the  language.  The  especial  difficulty  concerns  the  language ;  for  it 
seems  absurd  to  think  of  Shakespeare  as  following  another  writer  in  the  minute  and 
unimportant  phrases  that  are  common  to  the  two  plays."^  There  is  no  difficulty  really 
like  this  in  all  Shakespearean  study.     King  John  follows  very  closely  the  action  and 

88 See  Talcott  Williams's  "Bibliography  of  'The  nBeilage  zur  Allgemeinen  Zeitung,  Jeinnary  11,  1902, 

Taming  of  the  Shrew,' "  Shakespeariana,  Vol.  V,  pp.  115-56,  p.  79. 
*Sn-Sii.  92  See  Pvmcations  of  the  Mod.  Lang.  Aaoc.,  Vol.  V,  pp. 

w  Eversley  STi.,  Vol.  II,  p.  10.  2«-9. 

>o  Ibid.,  p.  i.oEversle 

186 


30  Shakespeare's  "Love's  Laboub's  Won" 

general  plan  of  the  older  play,  The  Troublesome  Reign  of  King  John,  but  not  the 
language.  Parts  II  and  III  of  Henry  VI.  freely  appropriate  passages  from  the  two 
older  plays  on  which  they  are  based ;  but  many  Shakespearean  scholars  believe  that  in 
doing  this  the  dramatist,  on  the  whole,  only  took  again  what  he  had  himself  contrib- 
uted to  the  earlier  plays.  But  the  minute  verbal  agreements  between  The  Shrew  and 
A  Shrew  have  been  generally  explained  by  supposing  that  Shakespeare  appropriated 
freely  the  language  of  another,  even  unimportant  bits  of  prose.  Every  student  of 
Shakespeare  knows  how  easily  he  transformed  the  materials  which  he  took  for  his  own 
use ;  and  it  is  hard  to  think  of  him  as  appropriating  the  ordinary  prose  phrases  of 
another  in  this  wholesale  fashion.  The  true  explanation  must  be  that  in  some  way 
another  man  borrowed  the  language  of  Shakespeare. 

More  than  twenty  years  ago  Professor  Bernhard  ten  Brink  expressed  the  opinion 
that  The  Shrew  is  the  revision  of  a  youthful  work  of  Shakespeare,  and  that  A  Shrew 
was  based  directly  on  this  youthful  piece.  This  would  make  the  writer  of  A  Shrew, 
and  not  Shakespeare,  the  borrower.     Ten  Brink's  exact  words  are : 

The  Taming  of  a  Shrew ....  halte  ich  weder  flir  ein  Jugendwerk  Shakespeare's  noch  fftr 
das  Original,  welches  dieser  benutzt  hat,  noch  endlich  fiir  eine  Bearbeitung  der  Shakespeare'schen 
KomOdie,  die  uns  in  der  Folio  liberliefert  ist.  Meiner  Ansicht  nach  beruhen  Taming  of  a  Shrew 
und  das  beinah  gleichnamige  Stiick  der  Folio  auf  einer  gemeinsamen  Quelle  ;  diese  Quelle  aber 
war  eine  Jugendarbeit  Shakespeares,  die  sich  von  der  spatem  Fassiing  namentlich  auch 
dadurch  unterschied,  dass  das  aus  den  Supposes  entlehnte  Motiv  ihrer  einfachern  Intrigue  noch 
abging  [was  stUl  wanting  to  its  simpler  intrigue].  Fiir  eine  Begriindung  dieser  Hypothese  ist 
hier  kein  Raum.  EinstweUen  mOge  es  ihr  zur  Empfehlung  gereichen,  dass  sie  zwischen  den 
fllteren  Ansichten  vermittelt,  diese  gewissermassen  in  sich  vereinigt  und  den  Bedenken,  welche 
gegen  jede  derselben  geltend  gemacht  worden  sind,  nicht  imterliegt.'^ 

If  we  assume  for  the  moment  that  the  hypothesis  of  ten  Brink  is  true,  it  is  natural 
to  suggest  that  this  youthful  work  of  Shakespeare  bore  the  name  of  Love's  Labour's 
Won,  that  then  an  unauthorized  adaptation  of  this  early  piece  became  popular  imder 
the  name  The  Taming  of  a  Shrew,  and  that  later  Shakespeare's  play  was  revised  to 
meet  this  competition  and  received  its  present  title.  This  new  name,  The  Taming 
of  THE  Shrew,  involved,  we  may  suppose,  a  claim  to  the  rightful  ownership  of  the 
common  material. 

Ten  Brink's  hypothesis  is  highly  speculative,  and  can  probably  never  be  really 
proved.  Yet  it  would  explain  many  difficulties ;  and  among  these  the  following  may 
be  mentioned: 

1.  The  agreements  between  the  language  of  The  Shrew  and  A  Shrew. 

2.  The  remarkable  borrowings  from  Marlowe  and  imitations  of  him  which  abound 
in  A  Shrew.'*     The  borrower  takes  freely  from  both  the  great  dramatists. 

3.  The  early  date  given  to  Shakespeare's  part  of  The  Shrew  by  the  stopt-line  test. 

4.  The  remarkable  excellence  of  A  Shrew,  its  author  being  called  by  Swinburne 

"of  all  the  pre-Shakespeareans  incomparably  the  truest,  the  richest,  the  most  powerful 

and  original  humourist."  " 

«3"Ueber  den  Sommemaohtstranm,"    Jahrbuch   der  •»  Cited  by  Bdllioi,  The  Works  of  Marlowe  (Boston, 

deuUchen  Sh.-Geselhchaft,  Vol.  Xin,  p.  94.  1*85),  Vol.  I,  p.  Ixxvi. 

MPu&iicattont  0/ Jkfodern  Xiatw.  .<l«oc.,  Vol.  V,  pp.  239-47. 

186 


Albbbt  H.  Tolman  81 


5.  The  view  of  Pope,  Capell,  and  Frey,  the  Bankside  editor,  that  Shakespeare 
wrote  A  Shrew. 

6.  The  use  made  of  The  Supposes,  a  play  translated  by  Gascoigne  from  the 
Italian  of  Ariosto,  and  played  in  1566.  As  the  present  writer  has  shown  elsewhere,** 
the  underplot  of  The  Shrew  is  decidedly  superior  to  that  of  A  Shrew,  and  appropriates 
much  more  material  from  The  Supposes.  It  seems  very  imlikely  that  Shakespeare's 
play  in  its  present  form  was  before  the  writer  of  A  Shrew.  Ten  Brink  and  Herford  " 
seem  to  be  in  error  in  thinking  that  A  Shrew  takes  nothing  from  The  Supposes. 

The  excellence  of  the  Cade  scenes  in  II  Henry  VI.  makes  it  probable  that 
Shakespeare  wrote  admirable  comedy  of  a  vigorous  type  very  early  in  his  career. 

Without  trying  to  insist  upon  all  of  the  points  in  the  hypothesis  of  ten  Brink, 
we  may  suppose  that  Lovers  Labour^s  Won  became  at  a  later  day  The  Taming  of  the 
Shrew,  whether  or  not  a  change  in  the  form  of  the  play  accompanied  this  change  of 
name.  The  new  title  may  well  express  the  claim  of  the  comedy  to  be  the  authorita- 
tive version  of  the  shrew  story.  This  theory  concerning  Lovers  Labour'a  Won  offers, 
therefore,  a  definite  reason  for  the  giving  up  of  that  title.  The  strange  similarity  in 
the  titles  of  The  Taming  of  A  Shrew  and  The  Taming  of  THE  Shrew  receives  thus  a 
natural  explanation,  and  becomes  significant. 

Herford  objects  to  the  suggestion  that  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  can  be  connected 
with  the  title  Love's  Labour's  Won  becatise  in  this  comedy  "  it  is  marital  authority 
that  labours  and  wins,  not  love.""  But  surely  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that 
Petruchio  carries  through  his  taming  without  any  real  affection  for  his  Kate.  The 
action  begins  unfortunately  with  a  mercenary  and  emphatic  choice  of  Katharine  by 
Petruchio  before  he  has  seen  her;  at  this  point  A  Shrew  is  the  better  play.  Still, 
we  are  undoubtedly  intended  to  see  that  Kate  needs  to  be  tamed  for  her  own  perma- 
nent happiness ;  and  it  is  only  fair  and  natural  to  believe  that  below  the  pretense  of 
Petruchio  "That  all  is  done  in  reverend  care  of  her"  (IV,  i,  217)  lies  the  deeper 
fact  that  a  real  affection  is  winning  a  wise  victory.  It  makes  the  play  needlessly 
offensive  not  to  admit  that  it  is  love's  labour  that  is  at  last  won. 

We  have  already  noted  those  passages  in  The  Shrew  which  seem  to  Craik  to  refer 
distinctly  to  its  supposed  earlier  title.  The  expressions  concerned,  while  not  at  all 
conclusive,  certainly  fit  well  with  his  interpretation. 

It  must  be  frankly  admitted  that  the  correspondences  and  agreements  in  dramatic 
details  which  we  fairly  expect  to  find  between  two  plays  with  such  parallel  titles  do  not 
exist  between  Lovers  Labour'' s  Lost  and  our  proposed  Love's  Labour's  Won,  The  Shrew. 
The  claims  of  Much  Ado  about  Nothing  and  A  Midsummer- NighV s  Dream  are  much 
better  supported  at  this  point.  However,  the  tone  of  the  two  plays  is  distinctly  similar. 
There  is  in  each  about  the  same  mixture  of  jest  and  earnest.  Also,  the  fundamental 
thought,  the  theme,  in  each  play  may  be  said  to  be  a  humorous  presentation  of  what  is 
normal  and  what  abnormal  in  the  relations  between  the  sexes,  considered  apart  from 

••  Publications  of  Modem  Lang.  Amoc^yA.  V,  pp.  aS-ST.  »» Intro,  to  AWa  Well,  Bvenley  Sh.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  114, 

•7  Evenley  Sh.,  Vol.  11,  pp.  6, 7. 

187 


32  Shakespeaee's  *'Love's  Laboub's  Won" 

any  question  of  vice.  From  this  point  of  view  these  two  plays  may  be  said  to  be  a 
group  by  themselves  among  the  dramas  of  Shakespeare. 

If  we  subdivide  the  fourteen  plays  that  are  printed  in  the  First  Folio  as  comedies, 
perhaps  a  classification  that  is  as  significant  as  any  is  that  which  separates  them  into 
what  may  be  called  tragi-comedies,  romantic  comedies,  and  pure  comedies.  The 
Merchant  of  Venice  and  Measure  for  Measure  fall  together  as  tragi-comedies,  plays 
in  which  the  action,  after  threatening  for  a  time  to  end  fatally,  reaches  a  happy  con- 
clusion. After  these  come  the  romantic  comedies,  those  which  have  a  principal  action 
that  is  in  the  main  dignified  and  earnest,  while  the  humorous  element  is  especially 
prominent  in  connection  with  subordinate  characters,  or  even  in  a  separate  subordinate 
action.  This  is  Shakespeare's  favorite  type  of  comedy,  and  at  least  eight  of  our  fourteen 
plays  belong  most  naturally  in  this  class.  If  we  apply  the  term  pure  comedies  to  plays 
in  which  the  central  action  is  filled  with  humor,  the  four  remaining  plays  will  fall  here. 
These  are:  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  The  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor,  and  The  Comedy  of  Errors.  It  may  be  best  to  make  a  fourth  class  for  The 
Comedy  of  Errors,  and  call  it  a  farce.  This  would  be  both  because  the  play  puts 
impossibilities  in  the  very  foreground  in  order  to  excite  laughter,  and  because  its 
comedy  of  misunderstandings  is  almost  entirely  independent  of  the  characters  of  those 
concerned,  and  often  becomes  the  mere  boisterous  fun  of  unexpected  beating  or  scold- 
ing. If  we  thus  set  this  play  by  itself,  three  dramas  remain  in  our  class  of  pure 
comedies.  One  of  these.  The  Merry  Wives,  is  generally  believed  not  to  have  been  in 
existence  at  the  time  when  Meres  wrote;  though  some  think  otherwise.  The  story  that 
this  play  was  written  at  the  command  of  Queen  Elizabeth  is  given  both  by  Dennis  and 
Kowe  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  may  well  go  back  to  contem- 
porary authority,  and  has  been  widely  accepted.  Kowe  says:  "She  [Elizabeth]  was 
so  well  pleas'd  with  that  admirable  character  of  Falstaff  in  the  two  parts  of  Henry  the 
Fourth,  that  she  commanded  him  [Shakespeare]  to  continue  it  for  one  play  more,  and 
to  shew  him  in  love.  This  is  said  to  be  the  occasion  of  his  writing  the  Merry  Wives 
of  Windsor." "  If  we  do  not  question  this  account,  then  we  have  in  Lovers 
Labour's  Lost  and  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  the  only  pure  comedies  which  Shake- 
speare wrote  of  his  own  accord,  and  probably  the  only  ones  that  were  in  existence  when 
Meres's  list  was  penned. 

A  very  recent  treatise  in  English  upon  the  theory  of  the  drama  is  that  by  Miss 
Woodbridge.  She  makes  much  of  the  division  of  comedy  into  judicial,  or  satiric 
comedy,  on  the  one  hand,  and  non- judicial,  or  sympathetic  comedy,  on  the  other. '°° 
This  distinction  applies  properly  only  to  the  comic  elements  in  the  plays.  Jonson,  as 
a  comedian,  is  judicial,  satiric,  reformatory ;  Shakespeare  is  prevailingly  non- judicial, 
sympathetic,  genial.  What  fools  we  mortals  be!  This  thought  may  be  taken  as  the 
motto  for  Shakespeare's  work  as  a  humorous  dramatist.     Among  the  fourteen  "come- 

i»  Cited  in  HAi,LrwBLL-PHtLLlFFS,  Ovtlina,  etc.,  10th  "*  The  Drama,  lU  ioui,  and  lU  Techniqiie  (Boston,  1898) , 

•d.  (London,  1898),  Vol.  U,  p.  11.  pp.  82-6, 162-74. 

188 


Albebt  H.  Tolman  33 


dies"  of  the  First  Folio,  the  following  may  be  said  to  show  in  their  humorous  portions 
some  approach  to  the  judicial,  satiric  spirit:  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  The  Taming  of  the 
Shrew,  The  Merry  Wives,  AlVs  Well  (the  story  of  ParoUes),  Twelfth  Night  (the  story 
of  Malvolio),  and  The  Tempest  (the  conspiracy  of  Caliban,  Stephano,  and  Trinculo). 
Of  these  six  plays,  the  first  two  were  almost  certainly  in  existence  when  Meres  wrote, 
and  probably  only  the  first  two.  Here  once  more  we  find  Love's  Labour^s  Lost  and 
The  Shrew  associated. 

The  above  argument  had  been  completed  in  the  form  given,  before  the  writer  was 
able  to  get  access  to  the  work  of  E.  W.  Sievers,  in  which,  in  1866,  he  advocated  the 
identification  of  TTie  Taming  of  the  Shrew  and  Lovers  Labour'' s  Won.  His  words  sup- 
plement and  enforce  in  a  most  effective  way  what  has  already  been  said: 

Wir  kommen  zu  zwei  KomOdien  des  Dichters,  die  einer  wesentlich  andem  Richtung  seines 
Geisteslebens  entsprungen  sind,  "  Verlome  Liebesmiih  "  und  "  Die  gez&hmte  Widerspenstige." 
In  diesen  beiden  Stucken  nflhert  sich  die  Shakspeare'sche  KomOdie  dem,  was  man  gewOhnlich 
imter  Lustspiel  versteht,  imd  in  der  That  sind  es  hier  nun  einzelne  Verkehrtheiten  vmd 
Schwachen  der  Menschen,  die  der  Dichter  geisselt.  Der  Mensch,  wie  er  hier  vor  ims  tritt, 
erscheint  nicht  mehr  als  das  Product  der  mit  Notwendigkeit  wirkenden  Factoren  seiner  Natur, 
sondem  als  ein  freies  Wesen,  der  Dichter  sucht  ihn  in  der  Sphftre  seiner  Preiheit  auf,  imd  deren 
erste  und  allgemeinste  Grenzen  zu  ziehen,  ihm  den  Weg  zu  ihr  zu  zeigen,  ist  das  Interesse,  das 
ihn  erfilllt.  Er  [der  Dichter]  erscheint  daher  in  diesen  Stucken  in  der  Eigenschaft  des  Padago- 
gen,  des  Lehrers  imd  Mahners  der  Menschheit,  und  so  voll  des  genialsten  Uebermuthes  sie  sind, 
der  tiefe  sitthche  Ernst  steht  doch  immer  im  Hintergrunde,  ja  er  verdrflngt  sogar  in  beiden 
Stticken  zuletzt  die  harmlos  heitre  Stimmvmg  und  hebt  auch  sie  damit  wieder  fiber  das  Niveau 
des  gewOhnlichen  Lustspiels  hinaus.  Wir  haben  ttbrigens  hier  nur  ihren  allgemeiaen  Charakter 
bezeichnen  wollen,  nicht  den  flsthetischen  Werth,  den  sie  in  Anspruch  nehmen  dflrfen.  In 
letztrer  Beziehimg  steht  "  Die  gezahmte  Widerspenstige "  tief  unter  alien  andem  Werken  des 
Dichters  und  kann  namentlicb  dem  heutigen  Menschen  nur  noch  durch  die  fast  verschwen- 
derische  Entfaltung  des  zwar  derben,  darum  aber  nicht  minder  glanzenden  Witzes  interessiren. 

Was  die  Zeit  ihrer  Entstehung  angeht,  so  schliessen  sich  beide  Stflcke  aUer  Wahrschein- 
lichkeit  nach  sehr  eng  an  die  beiden  Veroneser  und  die  KomOdie  der  Irrungen  an ;  sowohl 
Sprache  und  Versbau  wie  der  ganze  Charakter  der  Stucke  fuhren  darauf  hin,  dass  sie  bereits 
vor  dem  Jahre  1594,  also  vor  dem  Sommemachtstraum  entstanden  sind,  der  sie  namentUcb  an 
technischer  Vollendung  der  Composition  weit  liberragt 

So  sehr  nun  auch  die  Fabel  [von  "  Ende  gut,  Alles  gut "]  die  Bezeichnung  der  gewon- 
nenen  Liebesmiih  rechtfertigen  mOchte,  so  ist  dennoch  die  Farmer'sche  Vermuthung  vOllig 
unhaltbar.  Das  Werk  des  Meres  erschien  im  Jahre  1598  imd  alle  sowohl  aussere  wie  innere 
Merkmale,  Sprache  und  Versbau  nicht  weniger  wie  der  in  "  Ende  gut,  Alles  gut "  hervortretende 
gedrangte  imd  gedankenvoUe  Tiefsinn,  dazu  die  kflnstlerische  Tendenz  des  Stuckes,  die  mit  der 
verlomen  Liebesmuh  nicht  das  Mindeste  gemein  hat,  Alles  fuhrt  darauf  hin,  wie  die  Vertreter 
dieser  Ansicht  selbst  ofiFen  bekennen,  dass  dieses  Stilck  in  einer  spatem  Zeit  entstanden  sein 
muss  und  folglich  unter  jener  Bezeichnung  nicht  kann  gemeiat  gewesen  seia.  Was  also  liegt 
naher,  als  auf  "  Die  gezahmte  Widerspenstige "  zu  schUessen,  zumal  da  Meres  gerade  dieses 
Stuck  in  seiner  Aufzahlung  der  Shakspeare'schen  Dramen  unerwahnt  lasst?  Dass  es  wie 
schon  bemerkt,  ziemMch  gleichzeitig  mit  "  Verlome  Liebesmuh "  entstanden  ist,  gibt  dieser 
Annahme  noch  eine  neue  Stfitze."" 

101 E.  W.  SiEVKES,  William  Shakspeare,  Sein  Leben  und      recently  of  the  Boston  Public  Library,  for  a  copy  of  the 
Dichten  (Qotha,  1866),  Vol.  I,  pp.  329-31.  passages  from  SiOTers. 

The  vriter  is  under  obligation  to  Miss  H.  B.  EeUer 

189  


84  Shakespeabb's  "Love's  Laboub's  Won" 

conclusion 

If  we  recur  to  the  various  criteria  suggested  in  our  introduction  for  testing  the 
claim  of  any  particular  comedy  of  Shakespeare  to  be  accepted  as  Lovers  Labour's  Won 
under  another  name,  it  is  clear  that  no  one  of  the  plays  proposed  satisfies  them  all  in 
any  convincing  fashion.  No  one  who  has  followed  the  foregoing  discussion  will 
wonder,  therefore,  that  some  scholars  consider  this  problem  to  be  insoluble.  As  we 
have  already  seen,  Dowden,  in  1895,  expressed  himself  in  a  very  hesitating  manner, 
saying  that  "  Love's  Labour's  Won  ....  may  be  a  lost  play  of  Shakespeare,  or  pos- 
sibly, as  has  been  conjectured.  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well  in  an  earlier  form  may  have 
borne  this  title.""*  Wendell  puts  the  plain  truth  in  a  plain  way  when  he  says:  "The 
question  can  never  be  definitely  settled." '"*  Unless  some  new  evidence  shall  be  dist 
covered,  this  statement  is  just. 

In  trying  to  estimate  briefly  the  comparative  claims  of  the  various  views  that  have 
now  been  presented,  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  measure  the  force  which  should  be 
given  to  the  agreement  between  the  order  of  the  comedies  as  named  by  Meres  and 
that  in  the  First  Folio.  This  coincidence  was  pointed  out  at  the  close  of  the  discus^ 
sion  of  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream.^'^  If  we  look  upon  the  coincidence  in  question 
as  having  great  significance,  then  we  shall  be  almost  compelled  to  accept  one  of  the 
first  three  views  that  have  been  presented ;  and  among  these  the  first  one,  which  holds 
that  Love's  Labour's  Won  has  disappeared,  seems  to  be  decidedly  the  most  probable. 

The  present  writer,  however,  is  constitutionally  indisposed  to  judge  Shake- 
spearean questions  on  the  evidence  of  cryptograms  and  mystic  coincidences.  In  the 
few  words  which  remain,  therefore,  this  strange  agreement  will  be  disregarded. 

Of  the  four  views  which  hold  that  the  play  has  come  down  to  us  under  another 
name,  the  favorite  theory,  that  which  connects  Love's  Labour's  Won  with  All's  Well, 
seems  to  the  present  writer  to  be  decidedly  improbable.  In  spite  of  the  considerations 
in  favor  of  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  which  von  Westenholz  has  ably  presented, 
the  fundamental  difficulty  of  supposing  that  Meres  names  only  five  comedies  in  his 
list,  makes  that  view  inadmissible.  On  the  whole,  if  we  are  to  find  Love's  Labour's 
Won  among  the  plays  that  we  now  possess,  the  choice  appears  to  lie  between  Much 
Ado  about  Nothing  and  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew.  The  considerations  in  favor  of 
The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  are  strong,  and  the  attempt  has  here  been  made  to  present 
them  with  some  fullness. 

102  lntroducti<m  to  8h.  (London  and  Now  Toik,  n.  d.),  I0»  William  Shalapere  (New  York,  189*) ,  p.  246. 

p.  30.  ,  IM  S«e  in  this  article  p.  13. 


190 


^^ 


o.    en 


14  DAY  USE 

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